


The Lore You Know

by SeeNashWrite



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Behind-the-scenes canon compliant, Creature Hunt, F/M, Gen, Humor, Mystery, On-the-hunt, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-02-11 03:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12926727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeNashWrite/pseuds/SeeNashWrite
Summary: In the time just before Amara really upped her game, what started as a typical creature-feature several years ago takes a turn when the Winchesters team up with two very interesting women - one, a supernatural expert in her own right working the same case, the other a waitress who gets drawn into the fray accidentally - and when all’s said and done, our favorite hunters will learn that neither were what they seemed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Specific Warnings: 18+; Coarse language; Mild-to-moderate allusions to sex/activities of a sexual nature
> 
> Note: This series features a sprinkling of movie/TV lines & song lyrics for various challenges back at the ol' Tumblr. If something seems familiar, it just may be one of these prompts! All will be listed in the final installment - see if you can guess them & if you think I did a good job at a seamless incorporation.

A couple of the long tubes of light trapped in the overhead rectangles seemed a handful of flickers away from giving up the proverbial ghost. It would’ve been a bit too on-the-nose, given the locale, except it wasn’t purposeful. No one was being interrogated.

And no one was even  _close_ to being intimidated.

“People underestimate what it takes to be a waitress!”

“Yes, ma'am, I’m sure they do.”

“Ma'am, if you could go on and say—”

“Oh, I know, I know - ’ _servers_ ’, like how you’re not supposed to say ’ _secretary_ ’ or ’ _stewardess_ ’ anymore, but it’s just ‘cause I was raised in it, it’s been our family business as far back as… well, as far back as we can tell!”

The detectives nodded, slowly, and in near-unison.

“Not airplanes or offices, though, the  _restaurant_ business, that is, and everybody started out as waiters and waitresses, so that’s that, because it’s not like I’m a  _servant_ , I’m not their  _slave_ , I’m happy to do it, to wait on them and bring them what they need, you know, be a bright spot in their day and get them fed and full and on their way!”

She paused to take a few sips of the water she’d been provided, and they took the opportunity to continue on with not writing down anything, their near-empty legal pads and capped pens set to the side.

“I mean, it takes being a people-person, a good memory, oh, and  _balance_ because you’ve seen the trays! My  _goodness_ , people could get really hurt, you  _have_ to have balance, and be strong, and be able to hustle, not to mention the time management, can’t have hungry folks sitting around too long, right? 'Specially not great big men like you two!”

The detectives nodded slowly, in near-unison, again, and she practically beamed as she continued.

“That’s not the tips talking! There’s  _always_ people who won’t give you what you’re worth or blame you for a cook’s mistake, but the real, real,  _really_ grateful ones, they’ll make up for it, so it all comes out in the wash.”

After another pause - this time to take what must have been a much-needed breath - she gulped down the rest of the water, then stood, still holding on to the empty cup.

“Can I get you two anything while I’m— oh, gosh darn it to heck.”

She’d turned to walk over to the water cooler, but was shortly reminded of the fact that her other arm was cuffed to the long bar mounted on the table; her nose crinkled and her lips pursed at the feel of the tug.

Meeting their stares as she took her seat, a nervous giggle escaped. “Habit.”

“We’ll get you some more.”

Behind the two-way mirror, Sam and I shared a  _look_ just as the precinct’s captain walked in.

“Listen, agents, your other partner’s out there on his fourth piece of Maude’s birthday cake, and I don’t know that she’s even gotten any.”

“Fourth?” Sam asked, at the same time I corrected the captain.

“Not my partner.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Thought all three of you were together - the feds not checking memos anymore?”

“I’m forensic psych. They’re the field agents.”

“Psych, huh? Well, you got a real winner.”

The three of us watched as mystified detective number one handed their chatty suspect a fresh water, then sat back down beside equally mystified detective number two.

“She’s traumatized, clearly, but she still might be able to shed some light on the suspect I’ve been tracking,” I informed him. “That’s who we’re all really after, Captain. Dangerous dude.”

“So you’re sure it’s a man.”

I shrugged as I crossed my arms, still watching that bleached-blonde head bob as the rambling continued. “Most serial killers are. You ready to sign this off to us yet? Or you want Andy and Barney to keep spinning their wheels toward pension?”

The captain blinked a few times at my blunt statement, his jaw dropping slightly.

Sam huffed from beside me, and I knew I’d likely get a serving of full-forehead frown with a side of a sermon entitled  _“So Turns Out, That Wasn’t Very Subtle”_  back at the motel. Not that I didn’t enjoy it when he got all torqued-up. Truth be told, it was my favorite side of him.

The captain recovered quickly and his eyes narrowed a bit. “Sure, missy, I’ll get right on that - and the two of  _you_ get your sidekick outta my break room.”

He stomped to the door and I waited to speak until he’d gripped the handle.

“Doctor.”

He whipped around. “Pardon?”

“Doctor,” I repeated, turning fully towards him now, with what I knew was a flat expression because I made sure it matched my flat tone.

He stared at me - he knew what I meant, and I  _knew_ he knew, and  _he_ knew that  _I_  knew that he knew, because his fat neck was flushed and a vein on his nearly-bald head bulged.

“Not agent. Not missy. Not darlin’. Not honey. Not sugar. Not sweetheart. Doctor.  _Captain_.”

“Christ,” Sam muttered under his breath.

The only response I received was a grunt and a slam of the door.

“Why do you do that?”

“Because it’s good for misogynistic pricks to be around women who trump their aces. It’s called exposure therapy.”

“Yeah, except you’re not a doctor.”

“Still better at solving cases than him and his.”

“And you don’t know that he’s some sort of—”

“Sure I do. You think I can’t tell when men are checking out my ass or my tits? Even in  _this_ getup?”

“I’m just saying, between Dean doing… being  _Dean_ , maybe better to keep it… y'know… not be so bold, because that? Wasn’t very subtle.”

 _Called it._ I swiveled on my heel, away from the catastrophe of an Q-and-A on the other side of the window, planting myself mere inches away from Sam, all in one fluid move. “The assumption being that I wanted it to be subtle?”

“Nothing wrong with being cautious - to not risk taking things too far.”

I saw his mouth moving, heard the words, but his face said the opposite, and for that matter, so did his file.

“But you like me when I take risks.”  

I craned my neck further, tilted my head back, batting my eyelashes in a majorly over-exaggerated way. The tiniest hint of a grin started to appear, even though I could tell he was fighting it. I stepped in closer, ran a fingertip over his zipper. “And you love it when things go too far.”

Not that I needed any proof, but he didn’t brush my hand away, and the grin slipped from the corners of his mouth and across his lips as he raised an eyebrow. “You grab the girl?”

“You grab Dean?”

“Then we all take a break, grab dinner?”

“Sounds good. Long as a shower happens somewhere in there.”

Two fingers and a little more pressure with my next pass over the zipper. I had my answer already. But he confirmed it anyway.

“Absolutely.”

.

* * *

.

“I j-just wanted m-my roo-oo-oom-ma-mates and my g-girlfriends to know n-not to g-go to that clu-u- _u-u-u-ub!_ ”    

For all the ways her voice and her giggles and her sneezes and probably her farts sounded as if they were coated in glittery pixie dust, when she blew her nose following the most recent round of pathetic whining, it sounded like an elephant calf calling for its mother.

“And we  _told you_  not to say a word to  _anyone!_ ” Dean bellowed.

He was concentrating so hard on making her - not to mention Sam and I - miserable, that he almost ran a red light, jostling everyone as he slammed on the brakes.

Now he shifted in his seat, jabbing a finger at her to emphasize his words.

“So here we are! Babysitting you! Because you can’t go home, everybody thinks the FBI took you in, since you’re either a witness or a murderer or just plain batshit loony tunes!”

“Is…. is that the…. those the ones w-with Mickey M-mouse or Bugs Bunny?”

Dean’s face warped into something indescribable, immediately resulting in an ark-worthy amount of tears.

“I-I-I-I’m s-s-sooooor _raaay!_ ”

“And you’re back on the radar now!  We made sure you were safe, now you’ve turned yourself into a goddamned monster magnet!”

Glancing around, I saw a piece of fabric peeking out from under the front seat - it looked like an undershirt of Dean’s, probably a remnant from the last lucky lady he’d boned in the car, but I couldn’t imagine she’d care at that point. The handful of fast food napkins from the glove box had long gone past a usable state. Plus, what appeared to be eighteen layers of caked mascara were sailing their way over her cheeks and down her neck, stopped only by thin polyester stretched across an impressive set of double-Ds.

“For fuck’s sake, Dean,  _lay off,_ ” I said, leaning over the seat and putting the shirt in her hands.

That stupid wrinkled nose again, but it disappeared under the musty cotton as the reality of her limited options set in and she began wiping her face, chasing it with another foghorn of snot.

Dean gunned the engine.

I rolled my eyes.

Sam edged his hand across the seat, just far enough to run his pinky over mine.

.

* * *

.

I’d lied. To the captain. Part of the gig.

I  _was_ a field agent, just not with the feds. Technically nationwide, sure, but this division was an off-the-books situation. Plausible deniability and all that jazz. No Mulders versus Scullys, we were all on the same page.

And nobody had a hard-on for putting hunters in their place, at least none that I’d met in my time with them - not even the top brass. Who the hell cared, long as the nasties were getting taken out? Plus, I liked hunters, I’d met up with some before, and it was a nice break from my typical recon-and-report, the occasional supervisory role on breach-and-captures.

There was something about seeing a bump-in-the-night get taken out from a front-row seat. I had a good idea of what all our division scientists did to them at the many research-designated black sites. I’d seen the labs, watched a few tests get run, felt the heat from the straight-from-hell incinerators during orientation, plus I had plenty enough clearance to read the reports.

Still, it’d be a joke to think that any one of us  _hadn’t_ gotten, or wouldn’t  _get_ , some satisfaction from seeing a creature’s neck meet a machete right before they were about to take out a civilian. We had a department of SEAL-esque tactical agents, and they were impressive. But hunters… hunters climbed down in the pit, weren’t afraid of getting bruised and bloodied.  

And watching Sam Winchester do it was to witness a carving of a Greek god come to life, something animalistic churning inside him, transforming him from tips to toes. It was a work of art. A thing to behold.  

So was watching him work over Dean.

I’d seen it before, so I left him to it, scooping the waitress out of the front seat and guiding her to Dean’s motel room so she could get cleaned up. It wasn’t long before I heard the Impala speed away. I told her I was going next door to give her some privacy, and I think the incomprehensible mush that came out of her mouth and filtered through the bathroom door amounted to understanding.

“How long you think we got?” I asked, walking through the door he’d left cracked and shutting it behind me.

“Does it matter?” he responded, his mouth on mine before the latch had fully clicked.

Sam was right - we’d taken it nice and slow, every time. That is, every time since the first time. The first time was also a work of art, something to behold, gritty and guttural, and damn near close to bruised and bloody.

And it was also, in a way, what had gotten us into this mess with the waitress in the first place.

.

* * *

.

 **_  
_ ** _FOUR DAYS EARLIER_  
_SATURDAY_   


“More than that - I’m fucking positive.”

I closed the file folder and leaned forward, tossing it onto the table next to my propped-up feet. Settling back, I pulled the toothpick I’d been toying with from my mouth, flicked it to the trashcan. It barely pinged the rim before falling in.

“And you’ve tracked one before?” Dean asked.

Again.

“Yup. Like I said, I had a new assignment, so I wasn’t around for the complete capture - not in the ol’ job description.”

Dean made a sound that was the marriage of a snort and a huff.

“Not in your… wow. That must be convenient.”

“Sure is,” I replied, not looking at him, instead picking at a fingernail I’d snagged on the cheap bedspread earlier.

“They have different departments for things, Dean - anyway, we don’t know how to capture mares, and do  _not_ make another joke about lassos and breaking them in,” Sam informed - then warned - his brother.

Dean’s jaw tensed, and he sulked his way to the mini-fridge.

I glanced over to make sure he wasn’t looking, then shot Sam a quick wink. It earned me the lightning-flash appearance of a dimple. Nothing more, though, because Dean had slammed the fridge door and come over to us, popping the cap on his beer in an expertly-executed edge-of-the-table-plus-fist maneuver.

“Nice,” I commented.

Dean didn’t respond, instead flopping into the chair across the table from Sam, and adjacent to me. “But this one’s different, how?” he asked.

 _Again_.

“Jesus, are you  _actively_ trying to piss me off? What we’re after isn’t just your standard nightmare-bringer, it’s a mara.”

Dean and Sam both froze, both blanched, and both took on glazed-over, nauseated expressions as if they were about to vomit, projectile-style.

I grinned, couldn’t help it.

“A -  _singular_ \- mara. Old Norse. Y'know. Fjords. Fish. Ikea.“

Visibly relieved, Sam sat back in his chair and Dean took a long pull off his beer.

"I have the feeling you’d have known if it was your girl,” I added, getting a little sputter from Dean in exchange.

“You know about her?” he demanded.

It was a borderline growl, to be specific, and I saw Sam stiffen out of the corner of my eye, but it actually impressed me. When it came to partnering up a few days prior, Dean had gone from suspicion to thinking what I did was - and I quote -  _“so awesome”_ , then his opinion of me had rapidly deteriorated since the night prior. Catching Sam kissing me counted for a dozen strikes on my record, at  _least_. He was more than wrapped up in his baby brother’s life, I understood it, knew it going in.

 _That_ was in  _his_ file.

“And what would surprise you about that?”

He drank more beer, eyes still on me, questions galore in them courtesy of my celestial name-drop, and I shrugged.

“Everyone’s briefed on the situation - details are above my pay grade, though.”

Sam wisely changed the subject back to our current task.

“So, mara - because of the hoof prints?”

“Mmm-hmm. And the wood fiber trace, bark chips on the scene perimeter, hairs embedded in the necks - and, of course, the thoracic-crushing overkill.”

“Slow down, and explain this like—”

I cut Dean off.

“Like you haven’t been paying attention to a word I’ve said this whole time?”

He shot me one of those looks I thought was only reserved for Sam, which flattered me on some level.

“There’s lore saying mares were witches, some old-school hunter journals claimed they were just  _summoned_ by witches. Matter of fact, the Moles—”

“'The Moles’?” Sam asked.

I chuckled.

“Yeah, sorry - the division’s inside joke. What we call the Men of Letters.  Anyway, before they were officially a creepy clump of a cult and still had the ability to critically think on their own—”

“Ouch,” Sam said, but his tone was at least twenty-five percent light-hearted.

I shot him a faux pout in acknowledgment of the seventy-five percent offense. He grinned. Dean scowled.

“So this handful of Moles - literal men of letters, because communication back then was depressing as fuck -  they were  the ones who finally concluded that the maras were a specific breed of mare. Liked to add some flourish - making themselves into animals while they’re trolling for targets, taking on human form when it’s time to get closer. Smart ladies.”

“No way to tell when they’re in human form?” Sam asked, and I shook my head.

“Still an outstanding list item.” 

“Heh. Seems like that’d be an important one,” Dean said.

“Well, I’ll leave you my card, give us a holler when you figure it out, cowboy, we’ll be much obliged!” 

My tone was dipped in venom, and I received the gift of narrowed eyes, rolled my own eyes for a thank-you note, then turned my head back to Sam as I continued.

“Anyway, lot of their recon’s done at night, we’ve noticed. They’ll get around by horse - possession of the real deal or of a spirit persuasion, they aren’t picky - or they’ll hop tree-to-tree for travel, but who  _cares_. Point is, we got police and coroner reports out the wazoo telling me this is your standard, old-school, woos-ya-then-whoops-ya, Scandinavian mara.”

Apparently my conviction annoyed Dean further, prompting him to try and set me straight.

“What makes you so sure it’s not a siren—”

“We near an ocean I missed?”

“Uh, I don’t know what all  _your_ people have dealt with, but that ain’t the kind of siren  _we’ve_  put down, sweetheart. And what’s to say it couldn’t be a—”

“What, maybe a succubus? The keres? A gorgon? You ever dealt with any of  _those_ , sugartits? 'Cause their calling cards are hell and gone from these broads.”

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but didn’t get the chance.

“I’ve never seen them - the letters,” Sam said, a little frown on his face as he stared at his screen, already back to his  _clickety-clacks_ , likely doing some searching in his own curated data.

“They’re in our vault,” I informed him. “Sorry.”

A slight deepening of the frown, but he didn’t meet my eye, only nodding. 

Dean, on the other hand - he never disappoints. No chill in showing what he’s feeling, not with that catalogue of expressions on speed dial. He capped the latest round off with raised eyebrows, but his eyes were dull, like I’d just spoken in a foreign language that meant zero to him.

So I moved my feet out of their propped position, my heels hitting the floor with a  _thunk_ , then leaned forward, resting my forearms on my thighs, legs arranged in a man-spread, opting to break this down for him like I was just one of the guys.

“Picture it, Dean - you’ve just fucked the hottest thing a small town has to offer, I mean the kind of lay that’s gonna leave her walking crooked for a week, the kind that’s left your cock so raw and angry it might never speak to you again. You with me?”

I heard Sam gulp amidst the now-slowed tapping of keys. Dean, to his credit, held my gaze, but there was an ever-so-slight twitch of his jaw. He re-positioned, leaned forward to match my posture, and we were so close I could smell the beer on his breath when he answered.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe she leaves, lets you think everything’s fine. Maybe she stays the night if you’re the spooning type. If you’re a light sleeper, or she didn’t wear you out enough with the first couple rounds - and believe me, Dean: they’re good for  _more_ than a couple rounds…”

“Uh-huh.”

“…she’ll take you for the ride of a lifetime on that stallion of hers, get all three of you nice and sweaty before she brings you back to bed. You’ll be passed out before your head hits the pillow. And that’s when she’ll climb on top, wrap strong thighs around you, just like when she rode that pony, just like when she rode  _you_ , and in your dreams, you’ll think she’s riding you all over again…“

Dean licked his lips - he was completely entranced, and so was Sam, judging by the slightly heavy breathing from the other side of the table.

”…but you’ll never notice the squeeze around your neck - hell, you’d been kinky all night long, probably even  _liked_ it, so what’s there to worry about? Maybe you’ll even pick up on the long hair brushing against your face, but that’d already happened, too.”

He shifted in his seat, trying to adjust himself without reaching down to do it. 

“Except  _this_ time, it tangles around your neck, like all those tangled tree branches she’ll have left in her wake, 'cause see,  _that’s_  what gets a mara’s rocks off. Watching the life slip out of you while they crush your chest between their legs and crush your throat with a rope of their hair. For no real gain, no other purpose than just because they  _can_. It ain’t like any nightmare you’ve ever had.“

"I’ve been through  _plenty_ of nightmares.”

“Mardröm’s the worst.”

“How you figure?”

“'Cause you won’t even know it’s happening. Hard to get your mind wrapped around something when you don’t even know it’s there. ”

It was silent for several heavy moments before Dean put an end to our little staring contest and got up, chucked his empty bottle in the trash, then walked a little gingerly into the bathroom without a word and closed the door. Sam cleared his throat and picked up the file, beginning to read over it. I returned to my former position, kicking my feet up onto the table again.

“It really is amazing - I mean, the fact that these can be tracked at  _all_ is… and that you’re  _out_ there,  _catching_ them…” Sam said, looking up from the file and shooting me a big grin.

“Knowing a little Swedish helps. Makes for better reports when I can relate what they’re saying.” 

“They  _talk?”_        

Behind us, the toilet flushed, water ran briefly, and the bathroom door opened.

“Oh yeah - some are chattier than others, but ain’t a one of them shy - they’ll straight up tell the victim what’s coming.” 

Clomping boots across the thin carpet at a steady stride.

“Thank you for sharing all this. What you do, it’s… heh, I’m speechless, just completely blown away.”   

“Well, I’m not one to blow my own vertübånflügen.”

Sam laughed, and I joined in.

The mini-fridge was opened for a split second, then slammed closed, apparently devoid of more beer.

"Blown, huh?” Dean chimed in pointedly, and loudly, purposefully squelching our laughter.

When he sat back down, I saw there was a little sneer on his face that I’d wager many a man, woman, child, and monster had wanted to slap off that pretty mug. Probably Sam, too. I knew plenty about them, but hand to god I had no idea how he put up with Dean.

“I could’ve said  _lick_ my own—”

“You are a real piece of—-”

“—if I were  _you_ , that is, to be  _really_ obnoxious and try to embarrass my brother and the consultant—”

” _Consultant?_ “

”—who’s  _really_ being pretty cool, not to mention  _useful_ on this case, one the mighty Winchesters just couldn’t seem to crack—“

” _Couldn’t_ seem to  _crack?_ “

"This is fun, you repeating everything I say, lets me know you’re actually listening.”

Sam interrupted us with a firm shut of the laptop, followed by rising and pushing his chair smack up against the table.

“I’m gonna go take a shower. You two knock yourselves out. Literally.”

“No, you know what?  _I’m_  gonna go, and  _you two_  enjoy your research porn, and blowing flubertubas, and whatever  _else_ , because I am  _way_  too sober for this.”

“Where are you going?” Sam asked, irritated.

“Gonna call up the hottie from the restaurant earlier, see if she wants to meet me at that bar we passed. Don’t wait up.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Sam replied, and it was a little muffled, since he was already walking to the bathroom, pulling his shirt over his head as he went.  

As for Dean, he put on his jacket and got out his keys, all without a second glance at me, even though he knew I was watching his every move. And I knew that he knew. Proved me right when I got treated to one last eruption of emotion for the road.

“ _WHAT?!_ ”

“Just wondering if you’re going to apologize to Sam, or keep playing the whole it’s-my-old-birthmark-that’s-still-making-me-an-asshole card.”

“Thanks for the input. Go fuck yourself.”

I considered my options, one of which  _did_ include taking Dean’s suggestion, but I decided to take a page from a mara’s playbook, do a bit of nighttime recon. Possibly of a scientific nature, testing my hypotheses, all depending on Sam, of course. I took off my clothes before I entered - nothing wrong with trying to up my odds. 

The shadow on the other side of the curtain stilled when the door closed.

“Research porn?” he asked, once I was in the shower and his hands were on my waist, pulling me closer.

“You do love your research.”

“So do you. You’ve got a file on me.”

It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t an accusation, either - and he wasn’t moving away.

“You surprised?”

“No.”

“You want to add to that file?”

“Yes.”

“It’s back in my room. Need to get there. Eventually.”

“Then I guess we should get started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is fuel! Let me know if you enjoyed. -Nash


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam & our quick-witted agent learn more about each other; Dean channels his frustration; headway is made in the case as the waitress proves herself to be of potential value

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Don't forget - this series features a sprinkling of movie/TV lines & song lyrics for various challenges (see 1st chapter's notes for more info), and a reminder that this takes place in early S11

“Where are you from?”

Sam and I had finished up another round. After some breath-catching and water-gulping, we laid there quietly. I was thinking about how much I’d enjoyed it - the sex, that is, not the water - when he’d turned his head and began going down a set-up-on-a-miserable-blind-date road.

I gave him a little side-eye and he immediately backtracked.

“Sorry, I mean, you probably aren’t supposed to tell people about—”

“No, it’s… ah, all over. Not trying to be dodgy.”

“You don’t really have an accent.”

“Part of training. Gotta blend in. But wouldn’t have ever sounded like myself anyway, can’t lose this nasal thing, drives me nuts.”

Sam grinned, then leaned over me, started planting little kisses on my cheek and the side of my nose. “You’ve got a great voice,” he murmured, once he’d arrived at my lips.

We kissed, nice and slow and deep - he’d adapted to my preferences  _so_ damned fast. When he pulled away, he stayed in his hover, studying my face, and I raised an eyebrow, thinking he was about to have a  _moment_. He seemed to realize it, too, matched another one of those grins with a touch of an eye roll, then ran a finger over the ever-so-slight deviation near the bridge of my nose that I hadn’t bothered to fix.

“What happened? Bar fight?”

“Ha. I wish. Sparring with a demon.”

Sam laid back down, turning onto his side, leaning his head on the hand of his bent arm, and that creased forehead of his was in full effect. I matched his position, then took a moment to think on my phrasing, run the fingers of my free hand over the top of his chest, up and across to his shoulder, down his bicep before I spoke again. I raised my eyes to meet curious - maybe even concerned - ones.

“Personally, I found werewolves tend to get predictable. Djinn are trickier.”

If it wasn’t concern before, it sure as hell was now. Those  _eyes_  - the man’s picture was probably a featured example under “ _windows to the soul_ ” in some otherworldly textbook. I knew he’d left his share of women in his wake;  _knew_  it, but now I understood it. 

“Part of their vacation package after they’re brought in. Gotta keep them motivated, exercise them, or else they become pretty useless to the white coats.”

“Motivate…. so, you –  _they_ , the scientists – let the demons smoke out? No exorcism?”

“What do you think?” I asked.

I made sure to do it gently. I didn’t need to be scaring him off, not yet, though I had to admit, chances were high I ultimately would. Maybe a touch of  _didn’t want to_  was mixed in - I’d admit  _that_ as well, and I’d defend it, but I couldn’t let myself go there.

“I think….”

He trailed off, looked down, and when he brought his head back up, whatever I’d seen flash over those hazel traps had vanished. He took my hand, kissed it, then shot me a little smile. I raised my eyebrows.

“Yessss?”

“I’m thinking it’s about time we move over to your room.”

“What time is it? Did you look when you got the water?”

He nodded.

“About eleven. Not that I think Dean’ll be back anytime soon, but—”

“Yeah, better safe, and all that. And listen, just plan to camp out with me, I’ll help bring your stuff over.”

Now  _his_ eyebrows shot up, and he got a set of rolled eyes in return.

“I’m not  _proposing_. I’m trying to get you out from underfoot, if he keeps up that stomping grandpa routine. At least for tonight.”

“As long as you don’t—-”

“I don’t, or I wouldn’t have offered.”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay.”

Next door, I tossed my clothes across the chair - having just thrown on Sam’s button-down and my heels for the journey - then flopped backwards onto the bed. I can be a real snob - at least, on the surface. Clothes, shoes, the soap I use, the car I drive, it’ll all seem extravagant to some, but it’s just getting a real bang for the buck.  

And I’d never cared so little about cheap bedding in my entire existence.

He’d climbed on top of me, keeping his forearms planted so I wouldn’t be crushed - thoughtful boy - and we were back to kissing like we were filled-to-the-brim with the kind of hormones only found behind high school bleachers.

“I’m gonna take a shower for real this time, run get us a late dinner - sound good?”

“Sure - that diner’s 24/7, right? If you go there—-”

“Same thing you’ve had for lunch, or same thing you’ve had for dinner?”

I narrowed my eyes, but it brought a reflexive grin to my lips.

“You remember all that?”

“Down to the no cucumbers on your salad and the extra cheese on your turkey club.”

I brushed the hair back from his face, let my fingers linger a little as I tucked what strands would behave behind his ears.

“I do  _so_ enjoy your brain, Mr. Winchester.”

He smiled, gave me one last quick kiss before he moved and I sat up.

“Hey, my phone is way dead - you care if I….”

I trailed off, glanced at his laptop sitting on the table.

“No, go ahead. Need to check in?”

“Thankfully, it’s only that. They’re actually pretty great about it. Just wanna know I’m alive and kicking ass,” I replied, walking to the table and sitting, opening the laptop. “Hell to pay at the back-end, though.  _That_ report is something else.”

He laughed, saying, “I’d bet.”

I watched out of the corner of my eye as he took out his dopp kit, grabbed a fresh set of boxers and an undershirt. I made sure he had a view of the screen and could see I’d pulled up a browser, then a nonsense email account. I kept typing and clicking til the bathroom door closed.

Once the water was running, I started combing through files.

Bless that brain. Every folder organized like the aisles of a super store. I clicked on the link that led to the database he’d gradually been compiling of the Moles’ records - at least, the ones he had access to - and it looked like he’d scanned in what he had of his father’s and Singer’s records. Knocked out a section on the Campbells’ stash, too.

The sub-folder containing wrap-ups on his and Dean’s cases was sparse, all adventures considered - no surprise there, as Sam was likely the only one bothering to chronicle their greatest hits. I marveled at the hilarity of it, the one with the eidetic memory keeping track of details, although he  _had_ lost bits of that gift here-and-there; who  _wouldn’t_ have with all his fucking head trauma? Christ, the  _mental_ trauma?

I shook my head and sighed, closing up folders and opening more. I wondered briefly if Dean -  _any_ of them - knew how that kid could call up pictures before his eyes, pages of textbooks all right there like a photograph in a frame on a wall of his mind. Early as third grade, he could tell you what the captions under the illustrations said, the page numbers, if previous kids had smudged ink in the middle of the paragraph about the colonial militia. 

Law school, my ass - ol’ Sammy could’ve been supreme court material.

A cluster of files named something innocuous was buried deep, random letters and numbers and dashes as a name, admin access only.  All documents. One on himself….  _MW_ …  _DW_ ….  _JW_ ….

The shower shut off.

First thing he did upon exiting the bathroom - other than to keep combing his damp hair - was to look over, check out what I was doing.

“And how’d you do? Get lonely?”

“I managed. Find everything okay?”

“Oh, your files are pristine, made ‘em easy to snoop through.”

He chuckled, but it was most definitely wary.

“Demonology. Pornography—-”

That earned me a  _real_ laugh.

“—-Satanism. Voodoo. Witchcraft.”

I let out a low whistle, clicked away the browser, then shut the laptop.

“You continue to impress.”

He had a touch of a grin on his face as he put on his jeans and a shirt, but it had faded by the time he perched on the end of the bed, pulling on socks and boots.

“I, uh… I imagine you aren’t -  _weren’t_ \- joking about having a file on me. Probably on Dean, too.”

“You imagine right.”

He nodded, kept quiet while he finished lacing up, but didn’t rise, just turned his head and stared at me for a moment before he spoke.

“They send 'em over, once you reported we were in town?”

“Yup.”

“Why are you being so straight with me?”

“I  _could_ start lying, if you’d be more comfortable.”

“Not shooting  _you_  straight if I didn’t say there’s a good chance it  _would_.”

I stood, walked over, sat on his lap in a straddle.

“Sucks when lies are the baseline for 'normal’, huh?”

He didn’t quite meet my eye, just shrugged. Then came a kiss to the underside of my jaw. Then a few more, drifting lower.

“Dinner,” I prompted.

He sighed into my collarbone.

“Dinner.”

“And lock your computer before you go.”

“Sorry?”

“You haven’t let me wear your class ring or your letterman jacket, I know we’re not gonna be doing this forever, but I’d still like you to trust me while we  _are_ , if that’s fine by you.”

“You haven’t given me a reason not to.”

“Yet.”

“That’s not very fair. To me,  _or_ to you.”

“Not going for fair, going for honest.”

“And I’m…. going to lock my computer, and get going on food.”

“I’ll be here.”

* * *

.

I’d taken my own shower by the time he’d gotten back, then it was almost 1 a.m. when were done eating, and as we were rounding the corner of half-past two, Sam had finished snaking his way down my torso, just beginning to lower his head, when the Impala’s engine announced Dean’s return.

And that beast’s growl was a fucking  _lullaby_ compared to what we heard next.

I raised myself onto my elbows, looked down at Sam with what I knew was a confused expression, and found myself greeted with one in return.

“That is one ear-bleeder of a howl, and keep in mind I’ve heard hellhounds getting a backdoor visit from a juiced-up, hoodoo-ed cattle prod,” I commented, jerking my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the wall our rooms shared.

Sam’s jaw dropped slightly, then he slowly sat himself upright.

“I’m a real mood-killer, it’s one of many skills,” I said with a sigh, sitting up and pulling my legs along with, folding them under me so Sam had room to sit.

“No… I mean,  _yes_ , but… I am officially begging you to break protocol and tell me that story sometime.”

I grinned.

“Make it worth my while?”

He grinned back, leaning in, his lips almost on mine, when round one of The Dean Winchester Bang-A-Thon Invitational got underway.

* * *

.

“I swear to god, you could drown a toddler in my panties right now.”

Dean’s face cycled through a few hundred rapid-fire expressions, but she was on her knees, completely focused on removing his belt, missing the show he was putting on up north in favor of the one getting started down south.

“Well, uh,  _whoa_ …. that’s…. that’s a  _lotta_ information to….”

There was a tinny clank as the buckle hit the side of the wall when his pants and boxer briefs were unceremoniously jerked off his hips and left to fall to the floor.

“I mean…. y'know,  _stop_ ,'cause my penis can only get  _so_ erect, heh-heh-haa _aaaooooohh._ " 

Dean had attempted a little follow-up chuckle that had turned into an outright moan as she started to prove him wrong.

And then a touch of teeth caused his hands to flail out to either side reflexively, smacking the thinly-insulated wall, a loud  _BOOM_ reverberating, and not just in his room. 

* * *

.

Despite the full-stop on the kiss - and what we imagined was going to not only ruin the rest of our playtime, but likely rob us of the scraps of sleep we would be getting - Sam had a positively wicked gleam in his eye.

“Yes, sir?” I asked.

“I was wondering - wanna give them a run for their money?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Yes, indeed.”

Turns out his phrasing was apt, because while the both of us were way above-average in the stamina department - and if his passion for hunting transferred to the bedroom, Dean ranked pretty high, too - the waitress was apparently gunning for a medal.

I was facing the headboard when it happened.

_WHAP_

“Goddammit!” I exclaimed.

“Shit! Are you okay?” Sam asked immediately.

“I  _was_ okay.”

Sam had vacated the premises, as it were, and was at the head of the bed in a hot second, busy checking that my scalp hadn’t split open by the shellacked pressboard-and-plywood poshness that had bounced away from the wall and ricocheted off my skull.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I snapped, batting his hand away and frowning.

Sam frowned back, but I knew it wasn’t directed at me. “I’m going over there, I don’t care what—-”

“No. I got a better idea.”

Some pillow adjusting and a change of position later, I put my palms against the headboard, eased down onto Sam with a couple happy sighs from the both of us, then gave him a nod.

It wasn’t even thirty seconds before we heard Dean yelp, apparently having succumbed to a head thump of his own, but if the waitress noticed, neither Sam nor I could tell, based on her near-screaming demands for Dean to - and I quote - “ _Keep railing me, Daddy!_ ”

“Yeah, keep railing her, Daddy!” I yelled, giving the wall a few pounds with the side of my fist for the hell of it.

Sam laughed, but he’s a machine, didn’t lose pace, not one iota. Screw the supreme court. He missed a porn star calling.

They reached the finish line first, to our delight, though  _not_ to our delight was seeing the time was now around 4:30.  

“Worth it,” Sam whispered, and then we passed the hell out.

* * *

.

**_SUNDAY_ **

The breakdown for the less-than-riveting Sunday included:

  * Noting no new mara attacks; 
  * A late breakfast with a silent, sunglasses-wearing Dean, a chatty and overly-giggly waitress, and copious amounts of coffee for Sam and I;
  * Mild amounts of moaning in the afternoon that Sam and I only heard occasionally, as we were camped out across the room at the table, reviewing the case;
  * The waitress collecting and bringing dinner to our room that evening without being asked - another bag indicating she’d done the same for herself and Dean - and refusing to accept any money.



It came close to nudging me fractionally across the line into a sympathetic sort-of-liking, that is until 10 p.m. rolled around.

Had I written up the events of Sunday night for one of my reports, I would have failed miserably. There is no dictionary for the words - if one could  _call_ them words - that came through the wall. Perhaps a book on animal husbandry would’ve helped, but Sam and I  _definitely_ had no words, written or otherwise.

He was past angry and headed to being furious at Dean - we had work to do the next day, and the waitress had mentioned in passing that she did, as well. Sam was a good egg; he was also pissed on  _her_ behalf. This time he’d moved to get out of bed when he threatened to go next door, but relented when I put my hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s set a better example, huh? Maybe if we don’t challenge them or whatever, he’ll take the hint.”

“Sick of me already?”

“Not even a little.”

Dean did  _not_ take the hint. We set the ancient clock-radio alarm. We buried our heads under the pillows.

We got what amounted to a nap.

* * *

.

**_MONDAY_ **

Dean knocked on our door around 8 a.m., and when we exited a half-hour later looking like hammered shit, we found him leaning against the Impala, messing around with something on his phone, looking fresh as a daisy.

I hated him. I still likely needed him. So off we all went, following up with the coroner and neighbors into the early evening, not a bust but no forward momentum, either.

“Something….” I mumbled.

Sam turned part-way around to look at me. We were in the Impala, and I was behind Dean, my legs thrown up onto the seat, toothpick close to demolished, a pencil in my hand that I was tapping against the open file in my lap. I met his eye.

“What?” he asked.

“There’s a connection between the first two victims. Can’t quite draw a straight line right now, but—”

“No, there  _isn’t_ \- we’d have found it. And stop whatever that noise is,” Dean interrupted.

I glared at the back of Dean’s head briefly, wanted to drive the pencil through his ear. The only times he’d bothered to speak directly to either Sam or myself was in front of other people. Beyond that, we were getting stonewalled, and I liked it just fine, but I figured he’d made an exception because he thought I was questioning the work they’d done before we teamed up.

He was right.

“I’m not saying you missed anything—-”

Sam shot me a  _look_. Right, right. Transparency and honesty and all that. I sighed, started again.

“Fine. You missed something. You open to hearing why I think so, or not?”

A huff, a grumble, a hand through the hair - so I returned the  _look_ to Sam, who acquiesced to my silent request of  _deal with him_ , and turned to Dean.

“It’s getting late, why don’t we grab dinner - your choice - and we can talk about what might—-” he began, but once again, Dean interrupted.

“Good idea!” Dean announced, growing suddenly - and suspiciously - chipper.

We had to wait fifteen minutes at the chain restaurant due to the insistence on being seated in the waitress’ section. Dean smirked, cracked and ate what must’ve been a pound of peanuts, occasionally tossing the shells at Sam’s head. Sam ignored him.

I  _hated_ him.

But I sat between them, my back to a wall, so that the file could be open on the table without risk of looky-loos, and so I could speak softly enough and still have both of them hear me.

“All right. Victim of the first - community college professor.”

“Three counties over,” Dean said.

“Yeah. Noticed that. Pump your brakes, have some more peanuts, fill up your mouth, maybe go back to the silent treatment.”

“Let her talk, Dean - stop being such a dick, huh? So we can get done with the case and get back to…. to everything else,” said Sam.

Dean cut his eyes over at me.

“Yes?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Just wondering if you’d be bummed to hear him say that.”

“My life’s waiting on me, too. But thanks for the input, and go fuck yourself. Now, did I get  _that_ right, did I  _quote_ you correctly, or—-”

“Hi, everybody! This is so AWESOME!”

The waitress had scurried over to the table, skidding to a stop and rolling up on the balls of her feet. She actually started  _bouncing_ , tacked on a brisk round of mini-claps. Dean stared exclusively at her boobs when he acknowledged her arrival.

“Hiya, sweetheart. What’s good on the menu tonight?”

“Well, I think what’s best is the……”

Sam and I tuned them out.

“Hit me,” Sam said.

“Right, so - first victim’s older than the second, late thirties compared to just-turned-twenty. But number two was a college student.”

“ _Please_ tell me we didn’t miss that he was in number one’s class or something.”

“No, different college, states away, but this is his hometown, and god knows why the hell he was here of all places for his spring break - and before you ask, I checked, and the week he died, the kibosh was on the coursework.”

“ _Hey!_ ”

We looked up at Dean's near-shout, in addition to the fact that he'd flattened his hand across the papers.

“Tell her what you want so she can do her job,” he ordered.

I  _* _hated*__ him.

“Whatever the soup of the day is and a salad is perfect,” Sam said.

She nodded, scribbled a note on her pad, then looked to me with a touch of nervousness.

“Steak. Bloody as you can legally serve it,” I told her.

She blinked a few times. “Really?” she whispered.

“Really. Like,  _walk_ the cow by the grill and then stick it on a plate.”

“O-okay. Okay. And, um, sides?”

“Raw liver and Chianti, Dr. Lecter?” Dean asked; Sam kicked him under the table.

“You know what? I trust your judgment. You choose.”

“Really?” she repeated.

“ _Really_.” After she’d walked away, I turned my head to Dean, said, “That was a lie. She has indefensibly shitty judgment.”

We gave each other snide grins.

“Spring break,” Sam said, rapping a few fingers on the folder.

“You guys would’ve come up with anything obvious connecting them, I get that - what’s nagging me is the collegiate commonality.” I set the victim profile sheets in front of Sam, then pulled another document to the top of the folder’s contents. “The demographics on this town - the county in general, really - show there was a spike in births for a handful of years, around the time vic two was born. So even though this town is a blink-and-you-miss-it, when summer rolls around, you can throw a rock and hit kids from seniors in high school to sophomores in college.” I shifted another round of records to the top. “All these chain restaurants? Started popping up around ten years ago - they can pull demos, too -  _very_ smart business move. I doubt they have trouble filling up part-time positions, not to mention tables, every summer and over winter break.”

“What, for the  _love_ , is your point?” Dean asked.

I was going to suggest we start deep-diving into profiling everyone in that age range currently in town, start in on the employees and managers at the restaurants, like investigators  _do_ , but I didn’t have to - the waitress’ gasp answered his question for me. She’d just returned with a trayful of waters and gone immediately wobbly, though Sam had the wherewithal to partially stand and help her steady it before the lot of us got drenched. She was fixated on the profiles, which naturally had a couple graphic crime scene photos paperclipped to the top of each. Her eyes were wide and she was starting to blanch.

“Shit,” I muttered, flipping them over quickly.

“T-that…. those…”

“Sorry about that,” Sam apologized, taking the waters off the tray and putting them onto the table, but she just kept staring at the backs of the papers.

"I know them," she said, so softly it was barely audible.

“ _What?!_ ”

The three of us had exclaimed so loudly that nearby patrons turned with mixes of annoyance and surprise on their faces, but a few flashes of charming smiles from Sam and Dean placated them. I did not smile. I was busy staring down my startled new best friend - her future ranking in my book, assuming she was about to spill her guts.

“Sit down,” Dean told her, snatching a chair from a vacated table that was ready to be bussed.      

“I might get in trouble….”

“We’ll flash I.D.s,” he replied. 

“How’ll your driver’s license help?”

“Focus, doll - what do you mean, you  _know_ them?”

Sam gently took the tray from her, set it to the side, and she sunk down into the offered chair as she answered.

“Well, the…. I saw the name on…. see, one of my roommates was…. oh gosh, I hate to gossip.”

“If you’ve got information on active murder cases, and you’re withholding it? The FBI tends to get pissed at that sort of thing.” I’d officially slipped into those stern, no-nonsense, not-very-subtle shoes Sam seemed to both admire and despise, hoping against all hope she had enough brain cells to understand what a veiled threat sounded like.

“FBI?” she repeated, confusion all over her face as she looked to Dean.

He tried - and failed - to pull another one of those charmers of a smile when Sam and I joined her, just staring. 

“Heh, we, ah…. hadn’t quite gotten around to that,” he informed us.

Sam put a hand on my knee, gave it a squeeze in an effort to prevent his brother’s impending throttling, and it was an effective deterrent.

“It’ll stay confidential, okay? We won’t put your name in anything right now,” Sam assured the waitress.

He was effective there, as well - she instantly calmed, began to speak again, and in the most considered cadence and mature tone I’d heard out of her yet.

“One of my roommates - even after she found out he was married - she kept on… you know… they met when she was in one of his classes, when she was a freshman, back when she was in school.”

“Get found out? Then she was kicked out or something?” Dean asked.

She shook her head. “No, and that’s the sad part. He kept promising he was gonna leave his wife and marry her, but he’d get canned if the school found out about the affair. I mean, not  _just_ the affair, but that it was with a student. So she quit. But he kept on…. you know….”

“Leading her on,” I finished up, and she nodded again.

“She was beside herself for  _weeks_ , barely eating. We’d heard her crying at all hours in her room, this whole last month, but she’s been a different person lately. Getting happier and happier, even said something about going back to school… just more like she was, you know…  _before_.”

“Good. What else did she say?”

“Not really anything. I can tell she’s still sad he died, but she knows she can… I don’t mean to make her sound hateful… she said it’s like she’s gotten a second chance at having a life.”

“She’s right. She lucked out.”

All three of them appeared mildly horrified at my statement, so I walked it back - a bit.

“She dodged a bullet. So did his wife. If he did it once, he’s either done it before or he’d have done it again. Not hateful. Realistic.”

“What about the other dude?” asked Dean.

Now the waitress’ complexion went a little green.

“That picture was—-” she paused to shudder, rub her arms briskly “—-but I thought the face looked like maybe someone else I know?”

“Here, I can show you just the face,” said Sam, carefully removing the least graphic of the photos and keeping most of the gore hidden with his hand as he slid it towards her for a better view.

“That’s….  _wow_ … yeah, that’s  _definitely_ him. I’ve met him a few times, even…. he and one of my roommates have dated since eighth grade. Oh my goodness! She’s been out of town with her parents - does she even know this happened?”

Dean's brows shot up. “How the hell many roommates do you _have?_ ”

“Five. Well, counting me, it’s five in the house. So, four.”

I felt smug. I  _was_ smug. I must’ve  _radiated_ smug. “And there, boys, is your connection,” I announced, scooping up the papers and stacking them with a sharp tap atop the table, then back into the folder they went.

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Stop acting like this is all wrapped up in a bow.” 

“Least I got it in the box.”

“She wouldn’t know, just next of kin,” Sam told her, and bless him, took one of her hands because Dean was too busy being resentful that I was right, staring hard at the bar.

“If you’re gonna get yourself a beer, snag me that Chianti. Or champagne, to celebrate,” I told him when he stood.

“We don’t have those,” the waitress reported.

“It’s cool, sugar. You’ve been a big help. Better than all the popped corks on the planet. I bet a big tip’s in your future, ain’t that right, Dean?”

He grumbled what I suspected was a confirmation as he stalked to the bar.

She grinned a mile wide. “That makes me happy to hear. That I helped you.” And with a thanks to Sam for his kindness, off she bounced to the kitchen.

“She admires you,” he commented.

I’d already crossed my arms, leaned back, returned to thinking. “She  _is_ something else.”

“What’s going on in that brain?”

“I’m wondering what all tricks Thing One and Thing Two have in common, besides our frisky kitty’s house of babes.” I scooted my chair back and stood - Sam followed suit, and I moved around him, phone out and preparing to head outside. “I wanna check a hunch - back in a flash.”

I ended up taking longer than a flash, and when I returned, the waitress had delivered for the second time that evening. A nice, thick bloody steak with huge piles of steamed vegetables and mashed potatoes - the latter of which I’d ignore - was waiting for me. There was also a glass of red wine. I glanced from it to my companions as I sat.

“Bartender said that’d be good with steak - it’s house, don’t get too excited,” Dean told me, barely meeting my eye, then stuffing an enormous twirl of pasta into his mouth.

I raised my eyebrows at Sam, who responded with a little grin and a shrug. 

“How’d that hunch pan out?” he asked.

I took a sip. It did indeed lack excitement, tasted watered-down. I wasn’t surprised. “Oh my lands, boys - vic number two was  _also_  a card-carrying member of the cheating bastard club,” I replied, then took another gulp of the wine before happily hacking into my steak. 

At their silence, I glanced up to see they’d frozen, Dean mid-chew and Sam with his salad fork halfway to his mouth.

“Seems we got ourselves a mara on a mission to bed-and-break scumbags, and I  _highly_ doubt she’s done serving ‘em up for us,” I added.

Dean and Sam appeared to be lost in thought, occasionally communicating silently via their encyclopedia of non-verbals. It lasted long enough for me to get in a few bites of steak and kick back some more wine before spearing a piece of broccoli. Then I interrupted them.

“Pass the salt?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is fuel! Let me know if you enjoyed. - Nash


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The agent finds some common ground with Dean; the mara claims a third victim; suspicions are revealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Don't forget - this series features a sprinkling of movie/TV lines & song lyrics for various challenges (see 1st chapter's notes for more info), and a reminder that this takes place in early S11

**_MONDAY NIGHT_ **

The universe was determined to bone me.

The breakdown for what I planned on being a  _more_ -than-riveting night included:

  * Me;
  * Sam;
  * Semi-celebratory vodka on the rocks;
  * Semi-nudity;
  * Full nudity;
  * No waitress, no Dean, no interruptions.



But there I was, coming down the walkway from the ice machines, replenished bucket in hand, when I saw Dean standing in front of his room, just beginning to turn the key. I slowed my pace. He twisted the knob, cracked the door, but then tilted his head back and rolled his eyes heavenward.

“Didn’t even hear the car,” I commented, taking out my toothpick and tossing it away as I was coming closer.

“I wish you’d choke on one of those things.”

“Aw, it’ll take more than that to put me down. So - get stood up?”

“Why do you care?”

“Thought I’d have a quiet night, just curious if that’s still in the stars.”

“Quiet. Sure.”

His phone started tossing out dings - in rapid succession - and it was around the third that he his face got pinched, he made some form of a growling noise, then fished it out of his pocket, hitting  _IGNORE_.

I raised my eyebrows.

“She got hung up at work, her manager’s a real asshole, apparently. And she won’t shut up about being sorry - I’ve already texted with her like eight times.”

“Kinda surprised you gave her your number.”

He shrugged.

“She’s a cool chick. She’s got her own thing going on, gets that I do too, knows I ain’t gonna be in town long. Don’t come across that every day. And her tits are amazing.”

“How’s that different from me and Sam? The hooking up part, not the tits. My rack’s fine, but I agree, hers should be in a museum.”

A fraction of a grin before his face went stony.

“We’ve got a lot going on. And Sam’s not as….”

“What, as much of a master of the one-night stand as big bubba?”

Dean glared.

“Lookit, I don’t know what your angle is—”

“I have an assignment. I’m going to complete it, and I’m not gonna half-ass it. If you two can assist - great! If not - I bail. Simple as that.”

“And what about Sam?”

“Mmmmm… same as you and Barbie. We’re having a great time, doing what folks like us  _do_ , busting some stress after busting some ghosts.”

Another series of alerts.

“Will you acknowledge her, please? So that racket won’t be coming through the walls all night?”

“If you give such a shit,  _you_ deal with it!”

Dean grabbed my free hand, slapped his phone into it, so I shoved the ice bucket at him.

“Yeah, she wants to meet up anyway.”

“What?”

“All her roommates are either out of town, or they’re…..”

I went silent, scanning a little more.

“Manager’s more than just a dickbag…. had her pull a double, she worked the dinner rush…. he skims her tips…. more than usual today, because he saw her sitting down with us.”

Dean frowned.

“Why didn’t she—-”

“Hold on, hold on. I know exactly why she didn’t - we’d have probably made it worse. Text number six regales how he’s an ass-grabber and a boob-brusher and won’t listen when she tells him she doesn’t want to go on a date with him.”

I clicked out of the texts and handed the phone back.

“Maybe she’ll get lucky.”

He shot me what was possibly the dirtiest look of which I’d been on the receiving end.

“Chill. I don’t mean stepping out on your thing, banging this douche - I mean maybe the mara will be her own personal fairy godmother. Seems invested in that household.”

“I hate to agree with you, but… yeah.”

“Well, I’m right about this next part, too - and I’m gonna regret it, I just know it, but - you should go get her.”

“What?”

“He knows her address, told her he was coming over later because she, like an airhead, must’ve mentioned she was alone. But being a ditz doesn’t mean she deserves all that shit.”

“No kidding.”

I could tell by his face that he truly meant it. He handed the ice bucket over, then locked his room. But he hesitated after he’d started walking towards his car, and I’d approached my door.

“Hey.”

I looked back.

“Yeah?”

“I kinda want a quiet night, too.”

“Except if you run into that creep at her place - ‘cause if you do, I wanna see some bloody knuckles in the morning.”

He nodded, I nodded, and off we went to our respective duties.

Sam was so exhausted that after my mouth ruined him for other women - his words, not mine - I gave him a pass on returning the favor, as I had things to mull over. Even though we hadn’t known each other long, he’d have picked up on it, already  _had_ , when I’d let my face slip as I told him of the waitress’ troubles, mentioned it was a good thing we’d know where she was for the night. My dodge involving relieving my glass of the last of the vodka, then relieving him of his pesky underwear was right on target.

I heard when the hero returned on his noble steed. Thought I might’ve heard the princess crying for a little while. Maybe even Dean’s deep voice throttling to a soothing baritone. And as I fell asleep, I chalked it up to a good omen, one that meant I could focus on wrapping up my assignment without any more garbage out of him.

Fucking omens, man.

* * *

.

**_TUESDAY_**      

The grunts pushing through the wall woke me about thirty seconds before the Juice Newton erupted from the clock radio.  
.  
_….victims of the night, I won’t be blinded by the liiiight_  
_Just call me angel of the morning, angel_  
_Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baaabyyyy!_  
.

Sam sat up like the pillow had bitten him, jarring the bed - and me with it - then sucking in so much air, it sounded like he’d taken up all the oxygen in the room.  

I flipped over, jaw dropped, and was met with a set of deer-in-headlight eyes.

“I… I…. I, um…. I hate Tuesdays. And music. With the starting of… of Tuesdays. So.”

I blinked a few times, still not completely awake, and despite understanding why - which, I suspect he  _knew_  that I knew - it nevertheless caught me off-guard. Not so much the impact the whole thing with ol’ Gabe had on him. More the fact that it still brought nightmares.

“Uh… sometimes I get… hives on Sundays?”

The borderline embarrassed-meets-shame expression slowly dissipated into a full-on, deep-dimples smile, chased with laugh. I joined in a little, began to sit up. He spoke just as I’d thrown my legs over the side of the bed.

“You’re talented.”

“You said. It was that good, huh?”

“I meant your job… well, okay,  _both_  jobs—”

“Ha!”

“—but you’re really good at this.”

“What?” I asked, pulling on the most recent barely-worn nightshirt.

“Making things lighter. Making me laugh. I don’t… I haven’t been doing that a whole lot.”

I stopped, looked over my shoulder, eyed him seriously.

“Don’t go falling for me, Winchester.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Right back at you.”

“Well-played.”

“I’m subtle.”

“Good thing somebody on our little crew is.”

And as if we were at some play, curtains rising, house lights dimming, and stage directors issuing cues, the orchestra’s instruments echoed as the waitress once more began singing the song of her people, albeit less songbird and more like a mockingbird on crack.

_“Yeeeeaaah!  Yeeeeaaah!  Ah-uhh! Ah-uhh!”_

“I thought he got stood up, and that she was all—-”

“That’s what I understood.”

“So then when did she get in the mood for—-”

“Whoops, hang on - triple play coming up.”

“ _Ah-huuuungh!  Ah-huuuungh! Ah-huuuunnnnnnhhhgh!_ ”

“Hey, she got some diaphragm lift on that last one, that’s—- what  _are_  you doing?”

Sam had climbed out of bed, snatched up his key to my room - plus the one to his  _former_  room - and was headed in the direction of the door.

“I’m done! I’m done, I really am.”

“Whoa, hang—-”

“I know your company or division or  _whatever_  - I know they’ve got all the intel on us, makes sense, it’s  _fine_ , 'cause I sure as  _hell_  am gonna dig into them once this case is done—”

“I get it, dig away, but—-”

“—-but  _nothing_ , okay? They don’t know  _this_ , what it’s like to  _live_  with him, and he’s doing this on  _purpose_ , showing out—-”

“Sam! Check your angel of the morning, sunshine -  _you_  are currently showing out.”

Sam paused, glanced down, then back to me.

“I need pants.”

“You need pants.”

Who knows how long he was gone, but I heard the returning door slam all the way in the shower, with my head  _under_  the water, and was just stepping out as the yelling hit a fever pitch.

Seemed the show’s encore had decided to play out in my room.

The waitress was perched on the end of the bed, wearing a shirt of Dean’s with no bra, a fact of which I was aware because it was unbuttoned about two too far. She was trying on my heels, apparently distracted from the fighting by the red soles, gone from wailing magpie to a fucking crow with a shiny. Post-midnight Cinderella did not have luck on her side, but damn if she wasn’t trying.

“You stretch those and, well, at this point I’d like to remind you that I have a gun. It’s called a Glock. I call it Sheila.”

She actually had the smarts to lower her eyes, then there was a blush as she removed the heels, but she set them in her lap, holding them almost reverently.

“They’re so pretty.”

“……why?   _WHY?_   We’re here on a  _case_ —-”

“Tell that to your  _dick_ , Sammy, 'cause it  _sure_ as hell didn’t read the playbook! You act  _so_ high and mi…..”

“Yeah, I like 'em, too. Why I bought 'em.”

I’d thought to bring some of my clothing into the bathroom - needed the steam to knock out a few wrinkles in the skirt and blouse I’d be wearing - but I’d exited in just the bra and the skirt, not wanting my damp hair to drip on the silk blend. When I pulled the towel from around my shoulders, it seemed to register for her, and she kept her eyes downcast. Because she was so meek and demure.

I reflexively rolled my eyes, though I did put on a camisole. I could be kind on occasion, throw people a bone. Hadn’t got it down to  _never_ , but I’m not perfect.

“Did they come red on the bottom?”

Not that she saw - I had my back to her, pulling a toothpick from the vintage cigarette case where my stash lived - but I narrowed my eyes.

“Well… yeah.”

“I figured. It’s a fun idea, but I bet it’d be messy.”

And god help me, the side of my mouth quirked up as I turned around to face her - now  _I_  was actually starting to find her adorable. Just a touch.

“I wonder how they keep it from scuffing off onto floors.”

“I dunno how they do it. Guess that’s why they’re pricey.”

She seemed disappointed.

“Found that pair at a consignment shop, though. They’re an old design.”

It was a lie, but she perked up at the thought that someone living on a waitress’ dime could own a pair.

“…..so  _wrong_ with me getting my mind off the most recent fucking disaster  _you_ got us into—-”

“Sure, Sam, it was  _alllll_ me - you had  _nothing_ to do with it!  _I_ sure couldn’t use some R&R, I’m tiptoein’ through the friggin’ tulips—”

“—-and once again,  _I’m_  the only one that seems to give a fuck about  _fixing it_ , while you’re deep-diving into the so-called  _R &R_. That so you won’t think about  _Amara’s_ T&A?”

Dean’s eyes went wide.

“That is  _disgusting_  to even……”  

We had both done a double-take at that, then she returned to watching me as I sat, beginning to roll a stocking up my leg.

“Do you mind me asking - how do those stay up? Have they got the sticky stuff at the top? I always had to use the sticky stuff for the…. the tricky parts of… the kind of things I had to wear, back when I’d, um… dance. Sometimes.”

Sweet lord, send the chariots now, I don’t even care where they take me.

“No. No sticky.”

I hiked up the hem of my skirt to show her a dangling strap.  

“Ohhhhh okay, I’ve seen pictures of those. And they don’t run 'em or anything?”

“Nah, 'cause look.”

Unrolling the rest of the way and standing, she could see the thicker material at the top. And as I attached the back, the din at the other side of the room lowered. Then as I attached the front, it was dead quiet.

Once again, the waitress and I swiveled our heads toward Sam and Dean, both of whom were - and I mean this in every sense of the word - gawking.

So I puckered my lips and shot them a loud, smacky air kiss as I put my skirt back in order, causing the waitress to giggle.

Dean frowned, did his own double-take upon seeing Sam’s slow grin and my follow-up wink. He cleared his throat, which did zero good. So he brought his palm to the side of Sam’s face, giving him a quick - but sharp - pop to the cheek.

“See?! This is what I’m talking about -  _distracted!_ ”

Sam gave Dean a little shoulder-shove, then started poking his finger in the air as he wound up for another round of accusations over which one of them was being less hunter and more whore. 

“So you like vintage things?”

I got to work on the other stocking as I answered.

“Mmm, I’m old-fashioned in a lot of ways, I guess you could say. Born in the wrong time and all that jazz.”

She nodded, though she was possibly the  _least_  old-fashioned person alive.

“Can they go under pants? I mean, looks like, but do you?”

“Not for me. I’m gussying up a little today, gonna go make friendly with some more of your lovely townsfolk, track down friends of the vics, get some more scoop now that I know - thanks to you - what stones need turning.”

Dean suddenly jerked his head in my direction, then stomped over.

“Oh no, you’re  _not_ \- not without us. This is  _our_  case, you—-”

“Watch yourself, Dean.”

I’d snapped at him so viciously, it threw the entire room into a heated silence.

After a moment or two, the waitress stood and spoke.

“I’ve got… well, I’ve got a busy day, too, so… and listen, I won’t be able to come over tonight, but, um, thanks for… I appreciate it… letting me bust in on you… on  _all_  of you. Even though he didn’t show, I don’t wanna think about….”

She trailed off with a shudder, and I crossed my arms, stood in front of her, making her meet my eye.

“You call if he does, understand? I don’t tolerate that shit. Neither does Sheila. You catch my drift?”

A genuine but somber smile came to her lips.

“Thanks. I’m off til this weekend, so that’s good. And it doesn’t matter if he comes by tonight, I’m going to a club opening downtown with some people from work.”

“Who in the fuck has a club opening on a Tuesday night?”

“Well it’s a private thing, just invitation-only, for—”

“Who  _cares!?_ ” Dean barked, and even though it was directed at me, it still caused the waitress to startle. 

He sighed, closed his eyes briefly to re-group, then turned to her, speaking in a more measured tone.

“We need to get dressed, get you home so I can get to work.”

She nodded, and tossed one last grateful look my way as they set off.

Sam didn’t say much to me, even after he’d showered and gotten dressed - that is, until an alert came from my phone and I filled him in on our new itinerary.

“Here’s hoping third time’s the charm.”    

* * *

.

Dean was aproned, gloved, and frowning behind the flip-down protective visor when Sam and I entered the medical examiner’s room late that afternoon, but for once it wasn’t directed our way.

He did look up, though, lifted a piece of entrail as he lifted an eyebrow, then let both fall back down abruptly.

“I know,” Sam said, walking over to him, holding up a hand to stop any yelling that might’ve been on deck.

“I was on track with the horse thing, but I musta missed the memo about it occasionally jumping the fence and coming inside.”

“Yeah, this is pretty, uh….”

I trailed off with a chuckle, still scrolling through the crime scene images on my phone.

“Funny?”

“I’ve never seen so many grown men vomit, it was like a chorus line by the curb.”

“Well I’ve never seen a hoof print in a lung, so it’s a day of firsts all around. They know who this guy is, yet?”

Sam had taken off his suit jacket, answered as he donned gloves and joined Dean at the autopsy table.

“They weren’t assuming the house that he… the  _other_ parts of him… were found at… around… was his, and… hey, they not bring his arms?”

“With the fingerprint tech, last I saw. So the cops have  _no_ clue,  _none?_ ”

Sam shook his head, grimacing as he tilted to get a look at what was left of the corpse’s neck when Dean’s phone went off, prompting an immediate and dramatic sigh-and-eye-roll combo.

“Hey I know that ding-a-ling face,” I commented, then wiggled my decidedly non-gruesome fingers at his pants. “Want me to….”

“Yeah, and let her know I meant it when I said I can’t come to whatever the thing is—- hey! Take it easy, paws!”

“Uh-huh, got it.”

“They saw all this hair, right?” Sam asked, pointing.

Dean nodded.

“Yep. More at the shoulder joints.”

“I don’t get it - I thought the rope-of-hair thing was just for choking.”

At their silence, I glanced away from Dean’s phone to find them staring at me.

“I’m as stumped as you two…. heh…. you  _three_.”

“Oh you’re just _darling_ today.”

“Speaking of darling, she’s telling you that it’s cool you can’t come, she’ll try to catch up with you before you leave town.”

Dean’s expression went blank at that piece of intel, stayed that way even as I returned the phone to his pocket.

“Disappointed?” I asked.

“Not… no.  _No_. I just… I mean, clearly, with all this - we’re not headed out of town anytime soon. Mara’s ramping up,  _that_ much we’re sure of, and apparently to Braveheart level.”

My phone’s alert cut off any more discussion.

“So. Well. Huh. We’re sure of more than that, turns out.”

I enlarged one of the images I’d been sent from headquarters, flipped the screen so they could see.

“This here’s what ol’ Willy Wallace normally looks like. And his day job isn’t exactly banging princesses and rousing rabbles.”

Dean and Sam leaned closer. After a swish to the next image and a brief once-over of the vic’s pertinents, their eyes widened and narrowed, respectively. Returning back to normal posture, they studied each other, doing their mind-reading routine as gloves were stripped off, every bit in sync.

I groaned.

“Guuuuuys, can we just all  _say_ what we’re thinking? That the waitress—–”

“—knows more than she’s telling,” Sam said, and interrupting all over me.

“—is in big trouble,” Dean said, and all on his lonesome.

“Oh fuck my face,” I muttered, bringing a hand up to massage the ache that instantly sprang to my forehead.

“What?!”

“ _WHAT_ , what?!”

“You think she’s  _in_ on some part of—-”

“I  _think_ that she is obviously—-”

“ _The mara!_ ”

My shout brought them to a complete stand-still.

“Which means  _you two_  are officially out of your element.”

Dean yanked off the visor, turning to face me as he started jerking on the apron’s ties.

“Yeah, thanks, Walter, don’t think so, me and Donny are on top of it.”

“So you’re automatically The Dude?” Sam asked, moving to help with the ties, only to have the bloody tarp thrown at his feet upon Dean’s last-second success.

“She’s not the mara,” Dean informed me, ignoring Sam’s attempt at levity. “She’s  _not_ , or else  _I’d_  be on the table, not  _that_ dude.”

“ _That_ dude is now the  _third_ murder in connection to this chick, he was her fucktard manager, his car was found a block from her house, with the first of  _many_ sets of hoof prints leading back to his place, same as at the other crime scenes, all of which even  _this_  crew of Mayberrys will eventually put together, and I can’t  _believe_ that all your motor-boating has blinded you this goddamn far. Headquarters just needs me to make the call, a capture team’s gonna get dispatched, then we can all get the hell out of this joint.”

“Doesn’t explain why I’m not—-”

“She  _likes_ you, Dean, and fuck if I know why, but she  _does_ , so let’s count our blessings you’ve got the gene that attracts psycho-boogey-monster-babes and call it a day, huh?”

“No.”

He crossed his arms.

“No?”

I crossed  _my_ arms.

“Yeah.  _No._  Does burying your face in Sam’s crotch make you—–”

“Knock it OFF!” Sam yelled.

I turned on my heel, storming out of the morgue without a second glance, but they immediately hustled after me. I’d already dialed and brought the phone to my ear by the time I hit the parking lot. I was halfway to my car, only slowed when Sam’s hand gently grasped my wrist.

“Hey,” he said softly.

I came to a stop and my eyes closed on their own at the feel of his body behind mine, his breath against my ear.

“Hang on. Just for a second. Please.”

 _Damn it_.

I brought my phone down, hit  _END_ , then spun, looked up at him, not bothering to hide my frustration.

“She’s involved somehow, even if she doesn’t know it, I agree. I’m with you. But I don’t know that having your guys go full-court-press is the right move.”

“So what’s the right move? Arguing with Dean into the wee hours, trying to convince him of something I don’t need his permission for?”

“You don’t think it’ll help things go better if he’s on board?”

I stared. Sam stared. Then we both looked further behind us to Dean, who was leaning against the building, legs crossed at the ankles, casual as could be.

“I do  _not_ like being a foregone conclusion.”

Sam sighed.

“Is there any wiggle room, any at  _all_ , for holding off—-”

“You have until  _exactly_ midnight, then I’m not waiting around.”

And, thanks to the waitress, I didn’t have to… 

Well. 

You know.

* * *

.

_**TUESDAY NIGHT**  
**11:57:38** _

The club had already been taped-off, bright and yellow, anyone who was alive sounding as if - according to the cops - they wouldn’t be that way long, not unless there were some apostles on staff at the local hospital. So, no witnesses to speak of there, not to mention we were dreading the discovery of what may have become of our star witness to the disaster laid out in front of us. The voice mail she’d left for Dean not a half hour prior to our arrival was a bunch of whispered mush with a backing track of not-so-distant screams.

Dean and I had both gotten quiet, though for different reasons, and so Sam got to Samming, because that had made  _him_ nervous, for obvious reasons.

“Doesn’t seem to be out here in the open,” he’d said, once we’d FBI’d our way into getting the local law enforcement out from underfoot and were taking in the carnage.

“Nope,” Dean acknowledged.

“I’ll look back behind the bar, see if—-”

“Yeah,” I cut in. “Yeah, good. We’ll go over this front area.”

A quick squeeze to my shoulder, one to Dean’s, and he walked away.

I pulled the case from the inner pocket of my blazer, removed a toothpick, began my typical process of tonguing and thinking.

“Nerves?” Dean asked.

“Hmmm?”

“Smoking? That what those are about?”

“Something like that. So - okay - whatta we got here. General demon mayhem, thank you sulfur.”

He nodded, then walked near the stairs going up to the second level, pointing at a cluster of bodies.

“Except sorority row over here’s drained.”

I brought a pair of crooked fingers to the side of my neck, then tapped, and he nodded again.

“Bartender’s heart’s ripped out,” Sam called over to us, having just risen from his crouch behind the bar.

“What, fellas - a dingo, a drainer, and a demon walk into a bar….?”

Dean came over to stand beside me, hands in pockets, bit of a downcast gaze, and when he spoke, the begrudging acquiescence was so,  _so_ delicious.

“You, ah… your division ever seen team-ups like this? I mean, y'know, this public? Not back-room deal type stuff?”

I hesitated, and Dean 1.0 came back in the time it took him to roll his eyes.

“Classified, right?”

“Lookit, when you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet. It’s not a reach to think groups with things in common won’t occasionally gang up. Maybe there’s a monster squad passing through Shitburg, USA, heard their first dive ever was having a hoe-down, it’s a _given_  that all the freshest meat—-”

Dean made an _I’m grossed out and you’re gross for saying that_  face.

“The  _youth_ , are starved for action. Primo snacks and souls to chase. I’ll touch base with a pal back at HQ who always has his finger on the pulse, need to call this in anyway. We should have a little more intel soon.”

“Oh, so it’s  _not_ gonna be classified?”

I shrugged, pulled the toothpick out of my mouth to inspect it for what felt like a tiny split. The follow-up huff to my side signaled impatience. I flipped the pick, returned it, then looked to Dean.

“You still not found Tits McGee yet? ‘Cause here’s some unclassified: she ain’t left my short list, and it’s  _real_ convenient she apparently didn’t get dead, and this wasn’t mara handiwork, and I still have a mara to nail, sooooo, honestly?”

“What, too easy?”

“Heh. Hardly. The human world? It’s a  _mess_.”

“Except humans didn’t do this,  _sooooo, honestly -_ anything but your mara’s low-hanging fruit, that it? All these people not worth your effort?”

“See, that’s your problem, Dean - you care way too goddamn much. I think we mighta had the perfect hunter on our hands if we coulda sold the  _other_ Dean on what was in it for him.”

Pure ice in his eyes, and I arched an eyebrow, daring him to ask.

“What was in it for him, huh? Well. Don’t keep me waiting, I’m  _dying_ to know.”

“License to kill. Buy one, get one. All he could beat.”

This earned me a flash of dark fury from his instantly flat gaze, something between a smirk and a snarl creeping across his lips, capped with an oh-so-casual step into my personal space that, had it happened on a different day not so long ago, would’ve had me testifying I was meeting the Knight himself.  

Even the best recon reports don’t truly paint such a captivating picture.

Sam was by my -  _his_ \- our - who  _cares_ \- side in a white-hot second.

“Dean….  _Dean!_ ”

Sam had to shake Dean’s shoulder before he let go of the Pamplona posturing, and Dean jerked himself away, backing up a few steps and holding his hands up, plastering a wide grin on his face that was anything but reassuring.

“I’m fine! Great! Gonna go check and see if she’s dangling from the rafters, sound like a plan? Awesome!”

He’d turned and was pounding up the stairs before we could react.

Sam waited til he was out of sight before speaking, and even then, his voice was low, maybe even a bit shaky.

“What, ah… what did you say that—-”

I’d already started punching numbers on my phone.

“Oh, he’s just cranky, thinking that I’m gonna keep this yummy new case to myself. C'mon, let’s go over here, out of the puddles before my shoes get completely wrecked. Somebody I think you might like to meet. Well, sort-of, he’s stuck running the board, so voice only.“

Sam followed me, though he looked uncomfortable.

“And you won’t get in any trou—-”

I cut him off with a  _look_ , paused to dial in a few more digits, then hit speaker.

“Go for Wildcat.”

“Kittyyyyyy.”

"Holy Moses on the mount, if it ain't my favorite bitch-on-wheels-in-heels!"

I grinned, and Sam blinked a few times, ever-so-slightly taken aback.

“Listen, speaking of wheels: I may have something in your wheelhouse.”

“Today has been a one-armed-paper-hanger kind of special, honeybee. Lemme get Sector H offa the other line. And  _you_  get me the hell offa speaker, you know I can’t hear that pretty voice as well.”

“Standing by.”

I’d replied with a little chuckle, one which went to a full-on version briefly, noting the on-hold music was apparently moving off of the Twitty repertoire and onto Parton’s, when  _Hello Darlin’_  faded into the first few chords of  _Jolene_.

Sam’s eyebrows had raised so far, they’d hit his hairline if he wasn’t careful.

“'Bitch’? 'Honeybee’? And while I’m at it - 'Wildcat’?”

“He’s a fighter pilot turned radar guru, thanks to early retirement courtesy of the shakes - it’s his call sign. Anyway, now he’s the king of monitoring activity, keeps us all in order when we’re scattered to the four corners. He’s… basically my Bobby.”

“It’s still weird, you knowing all this stuff about us… about  _me_.”

“Hmmm. I’d think the weird part would be my not ponying up that I  _knew_ all this stuff about you. Besides. There was plenty more to learn.”

I smiled, waited til I got a speck of one out of him, then held up the phone, tilted my head to the door.

"'Cat sounds like he's not really in a place to chit-chat, so I gotta…."

“Yeah, no, of course. I’ll be here. And… thanks.”

Once outside, I walked around the corner of the building, kept to the back.

“Okay, we’re good.”

“You coddle him.”

I rolled my eyes.

I hadn’t lied. Wildcat and I had a great relationship, minute we met onward, he was just a hell of a lot more stern than the play-acting he did let on. The vaguely eastern European accent I never had quite been able to place certainly added that extra layer of gravitas frosting.

“So why country?”

“Why not? Thought it might loosen things up. They’re salt-of-the-earth sorts. Maybe they would dig it.”

“Couple things - don’t ever say 'dig it’ again, and second - when I put in for a pot-stir, I don’t recall checking the box for utter shitstorm.”

He started to speak, but I cut him off.

“And you know what else, kitten? I am  _sick_ of this bush-league garbage. What the fuck is happening in recruitment, because these jackoffs lately are— what?”

A deep sigh had come from the other end of the line - never good.

“Spill.”

“The call from Sector H - same issue.”

“Oh, goodie gumdrops, then - I’m not being singled out. Pisses. Me.  _Off_. They  _knew_ , they had  _plenty_ of time to pull the best we’ve got, and you  _know_ it, I called you the  _second_ the Winchesters—”

“Darling, breathe. Please. That isn’t the current thought.”

I leaned against the wall, my brain doing some fine roulette-worthy spins, and I didn’t like where it stopped, 'cause I’d been betting on black for a long, long,  _long_ time now.

“Shit.  _Shit_ , I mean,  _'Cat_ …. you don’t sound like you’re thinking the whitecoats are whiffing the programming.”

Silence.

“Is this…. are we talking  _de-programming_ , here? Do they think that—-”

“How are things going with the mara plan?”

"Fuck the mara plan, not my priority anymore. And that's _another_ thing - why the hell didn't scheduling just leave whoever my stager was on-call? They did a great job, I mean the first looked convincing, the second one, christ on a cracker, it looked like the real thing, I should've taken some selfies with it, the body looked _that_ good. This third one was honestly a little much, though, and much as you know I _love_ paperwork, I plan to file a complaint, no shit."

Silence.

 _Again_.

“Hey, puss-puss, you’re killing me over here.”

“Two mara stagings - all you ordered.”

“Yeah, I know - I assumed once the Winchesters were known to be in play—”

“ _Two._ ”

“Yeah I  _know_ , but…. oh,  _nooooo_.”

“I’m afraid it seems so. I imagine there was one nearby enough to believe another was encroaching on their hunting ground - you know how territorial they are—”

“You  _imagine_. Why do we even have surveillance teams.  _Why_. Don’t answer that, I’m not actually asking. This is un- _fucking_ -real.”

“I’ll dispatch search and retrieval as soon as they’re done in Sector H.”

“Unless Sector H is suddenly H-stands-for-hell, consider me ungrateful. Get their asses over here  _now_ , I do  _not_  have time to deal with an actual horse-riding, choke-kinky, nightmare-nutter!”

Wildcat took a breath in prep for his response, but I was on a roll.

“You know what, screw it.  _Screw it_ , I’ll do it my fucking self. After the brothers Grimm go to sleep I’ll pop over to R&D, grab one of those pandora knock-offs, bring you some chili-cheese fries, and I’ll have the bitch boxed and stashed in my trunk by morning.”

“No. Make the mara plan your priority.”

Since he felt like being my boss, I felt like being a snotface.

“Well we should probably give it a new name, seeing as how—”

“Ah, something more apt?  Perhaps it should be the 'Letting Sam Winchester Pound Me Away From My Directives Initiative’.”

“Ex-fucking- _cuse_ me?”

“Focused, now? We were aware of the incident last night—-”

“Incident?!  Stephen King would  _jizz_ himself if he saw the amount of—–”

“—-and  _he_ knew you’d be calling.”

I cracked the toothpick to bits, spit the splinters out onto the concrete.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes. Fuck.  _What?_ ”

“He wants your focus on the original mission - you are to carry on.”

“There’s a joke in there somewhere.”

“A small contingent of his personal attachés will be there shortly. They’ll take care of the clean-up, then they’ve been instructed to remain at your disposal for whatever may arise. Should the  _actual_ mara make an appearance, or otherwise.”

“Otherwise, heh, sure. Anything else?”

“I expect you  _know_ what else. Ease off of the Winchesters. Your primary mission interests him much more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is fuel! Let me know if you enjoyed. -Nash


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search for the waitress continues; Sam’s uneasiness grows, while Dean becomes more convinced the agent is not who she seems; in light of new information, the agent shifts tactics, preparing to play her final hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Don't forget - this series features a sprinkling of movie/TV lines & song lyrics for various challenges (see 1st chapter's notes for more info), and a reminder that this takes place in early S11

“Are you still there?”

Wildcat was set on giving me a headache, it seemed, and he'd succeeded, but I let it be. Good for my cover. They'd expect me to be at least a touch stressed at this point in our little story.

“Regrettably.”

“Well, good news - got a body for you.”

I looked at the feed he’d just loaded for me, and when it flipped to infrared, sure enough, there was a form in the fetal position, somewhere to the back of the building, practically glowing -  her ticker must’ve been tap-tapping away at rabbit speed for her to be putting off all that heat.

“That’s not all.”

“Oh, ‘course not.”

“Before the trio fell into buffet mode, they managed to set up the cameras—”

“Which,  _again_ , what the hell is the  _actual_ surveillance team doing, getting pedicures?”

Wildcat didn’t acknowledge me, instead replacing one feed with another. Seemed the search for the waitress was on hold, as Sam and Dean were in the middle of the main room, deep in conversation. But I wasn’t just watching - this time, I had audio.

.

* * *

.

“….telling you, it’s  _her!_ ”

“You’ve lost it. Perspective. Intuition. Instinct. Whatever.”

Dean’s jaw dropped slightly and his eyes went wide. “Really?  _You_ , of all people—”

“We’ve  _both_ slept with— look, it doesn’t  _matter_ , since she’s not— you know what? I’m not having this conversation.”

Sam began to turn away, but Dean snatched his arm, whipping him back around, and was rewarded with a glare and a mighty fine jaw clench. 

“You  _honestly_ think the waitress is the mara?” Dean demanded.

“I  _honestly_ don’t  _know_. But I  _do_ know that  _she_ —-” Sam interjected a broad arm sweep, freeing himself from Dean’s grip while also pointing a finger to the door, to the outside, to me “—-is not the mara. We’ve been together the whole time! I mean, at least during that last attack!”

“And there’s no way she coulda snuck out, no way at  _all_? Not for that, or for this?”

“So now you think she’s responsible for…. Dean, you’re nuts! Which is it? Is she the mara, or part of the monster posse? A werewolf? She’s actually the  _werewolf_ from last night?”

Dean shrugged. “You  _do_ love dogs.”

Sam ignored the dig, started pacing in a small back-and-forth right in front of Dean, who crossed his arms, followed the movements, never taking his eyes from Sam’s, figuring it was best to let him process aloud for the moment.

“Wait - even better, she’s the  _vampire_ , because she likes her steaks rare! Nope! I got it!” Sam came to a halt, back to facing Dean, punctuating the end of his sentence with a quick clap of sarcastic epiphany before mimicking Dean’s stance and crossing his arms while finishing up his thoughts. “She’s the  _demon_ , that it? 'Cause that’s my type, right? That’s  _my_ monster-magnet gene, to…. What?”

At the last suggestion, Dean’s eyes had fixed on Sam’s in a serious stare.

“I think she’s  _something_. Okay? Because  _something’s_ not right, Sam, and yeah, I’m not kicking on all cylinders 'cause of this Amara crap, but I can’t…. I can’t shake the feeling something’s  _off_ with her. And I gotta wonder if she’s done something to… to…. to I dunno,  _influence_ you. You’re  _way_ distracted, and that ain’t you.”

Sam kept silent, and Dean inhaled and exhaled a slightly shaky breath - he’d have been lying if he’d said it wasn’t surprising that Sam had heard him out.

Finally, quietly, Sam said, “That was a lot of 'something’s.”

To which Dean responded by blurting, loudly, “I put holy water in her wine.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up.

“But maybe, I dunno, maybe it was expired.”

“Expired,” Sam repeated.

“So you need to get her distracted, and draw a trap under the bed, or….”

Dean trailed off into silence as Sam closed his eyes, unfolded his arms, tried to make his posture casual, force his tone to be even. And as he opened his eyes again, looking over Dean with a bit of a fresher perspective, what he saw was concerning. It wouldn’t have been evident to just anyone, but Dean’s exterior was ever-so-slightly beginning to crack, and he was clearly more than a little unnerved.

“I don’t need to do that - she’s not possessed.”

“How do you—-”

Sam huffed, ran a hand through his hair, looked to the ceiling, almost making eye contact with one of the cameras.

“Why’re you blushing?” Dean asked, a hint of teasing in his voice.

“Demons…. to me, at least… they…. taste different.”

Now Dean’s tone went to something between worry and anger. “What, are you…. did…. I mean, we  _all_ go freaky every now and then—”

“Actually, not  _all_ of us.”

“—so I get things going rough, but…. how would you…. did you maybe bite—”

“No!”

“—her lip? Get her blood in your mouth or something?”

“ _No!_ ” Sam insisted through grit teeth, the wish for Dean to take the hint all but written across his face.

And as it hit Dean what Sam meant,  _his_ cheeks got flushed and he pulled at his tie, loosening it. “Copy that,” he managed, then cleared his throat.

“Besides, she’s got tattoos - warding. And plenty of it.”

At that point, I leaned back against the wall, a grin easing across my face in spite of myself, because I was about to hear Sam’s take on what he’d been investigating before we got the call about the club.

.

* * *

.

**_TUESDAY NIGHT - 7:22 P.M._ **

After a day filled with the spread-out crime scene trek and the morgue fight and talking to a bunch of uniformed people in a variety of settings who knew jack shit, I announced I was done upon our return to the motel, for the Hardy Boys to call me if something of import came up.

“You don’t want dinner?” asked Sam.

“I want vodka,” I replied, and gave them a less-than-energetic finger-waggle of a wave as I closed my door.

I threw my blazer over a chair, took out my earrings and tossed them on the dresser, heard the slam of the car door and the grumbling engine easing away, but never heard the room’s door open or close. I had one knee bent, calf raised, beginning to take off a heel, when I felt him. Sam had come to a stop right behind me, just like in the parking lot earlier, and just like before, I felt resolve fall away when his breath touched my ear.

“Wait. Don’t take those off.”    

I hoped he was thinking what I was thinking, which was that those beauties sure would look good resting against the small of his back, but if he did, he changed his mind to an even better idea.

He leaned, ran a hand over mine, nudging it away. He slowly lowered my leg, taking a knee briefly as he did so, and then I felt a hand on each leg, and he kept contact, all the way up as he stood, bringing the hem of my skirt along with, and - quite audibly - gulped. I let out a breathy chuckle.

“Boss not too strict on dress code, I take it?” he asked.

“I’m all about expediency. Underwear slows me down.”

Sam chuckled as well, pulled me in tight, and a chill ran up my spine at the feel of his slacks pressed against my bare skin. “So the stockings and garter belt don’t—-”

“You complaining?”

“Oh, no. Hell no.”

That we hadn’t gotten around to  _this_ particular way of killing time over the course of our tryst hadn’t annoyed me, but I was mentally cursing myself for not outright suggesting it. And on  _day one_ , because now that I knew what I’d been missing…. on the other hand? Well, there’s a reason for that saying about waiting and good things coming.

I needed the mental cleansing. All I had to concentrate on was relaxing, though admittedly the skirt that now resided around my ribcage was momentarily distracting, that is, til Sam got down to business - and as pleasing as it was, that’s the only way I could describe it: methodical and precise and rhythmic, and whether the skill was practiced or just natural oral talent, I couldn’t guess, and who cared? I didn’t have to lift a finger, he kept my legs out of his way with hands that were firmly locked onto the back of my thighs, though I hoped they’d join in at some point, not that it was needed at the rate things were progressing with just his mouth alone.

Show-off.

“Wow…. oh,  _wow_.”

That hot breath again, and I was flattered, but the shifting of the mattress and the slow licks and kisses being trailed from further and further away told me it wasn’t generic sex commentary.  

“This looks like the one Dean and I have.”

 _Definitely_ not generic.

“You’ve seen the one below my belly button, that Enochian script.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how I missed that it went….. that it went…. wait, is this one Sanskrit? Vedic, yeah?”

I sighed and propped up on my elbows. Patience was, thankfully, a virtue I’d managed to retain. Best to let him nerd out, so he could focus again.  

The collection of tattoos I’d acquired since my career change went from below my belly, to my inner thighs, then trailed down from there, keeping them hidden unless I chose to share. On one leg, I’d started coming dangerously close to my knee, which meant I’d have to decide where to put new ones at some point in the near future. But they were all delicately inked, all very artistically rendered, all exactly as described or drawn in the lore, and all very captivating to my companion.

Sam looked to me with shining eyes - the lore and a lay - there’s a died-and-gone-to-heaven joke somewhere in there, but it somehow rang hollow when applied to a Winchester. 

“Some of these, I’ve never even seen, I mean, I recognize the languages - Egyptian, and…. and…. the cuneiform, over here, I  _know_  I know it—-”

“Hittite.”

“Yeah!  And this one’s Latin, but it’s faded, I can’t make out….“ 

His eyes went back to studying, a few fingers ever-so-lightly tracing a line of verse that was teeth-gridingly close to where I wished they’d be, instead.

"That’s the oldest one, need to get it touched-up. It’s just a little something for any revenants that try to get fresh.”

“Wow.”

“Yup.”

More tracing, and he leaned in, tossed me a couple of pity kisses, which I found both considerate and fucking frustrating. “You’ve covered… well, looks like everything, I guess, right?”

“We don’t all have guardian angels on speed-dial. And my jury’s still out on whether yours is more blessing or curse.”

That earned me a quick, sheepish grin of  _No comment_.

“Not that I mind discussing this stuff, but you done getting your geek on, yet?”

 _That_ earned me the grin of a shark eyeing prey. “No. But I’ll make it up to you.”

His hand drifted higher, and I instantly felt my breath hitch and my core tighten, traitorous body, but after far too short an interval, back to investigating he went.

“Tease. I’m not protected from  _you_. Play fair.”

“Some of these are parts of banishing incantations,” he commented. “Not exactly warding.”

“I am not above having cheat-sheets. Besides, warding-shmording. Never thought it did much.”

“That’s…. interesting,” he replied, the tiniest hint of a frown appearing.

“I’m of the notion that if something nasty wants to set up shop, they’ll find a way. Anyhow, it’s mostly my version of notches on the belt, but I don’t  _wear_ belts. Just another thing that—”

“Slows things down too much?”

“Messes with my carefully-cultivated aesthetic. But that, too.”

“Are these anywhere else?”

I laughed heartily at that, and he joined in. “As of now, you’ve officially seen all my anywhere-elses,” I pointed out. “I did have a classmate, back when we were recruits, who got creative—-”

“ _This_ isn’t creative?”

“—-shaved their head, got 'em done on the scalp.”

“Ouch!  Did he grow his hair back out?”

“You  _would_ ask that - yes. And it was 'she’. Cool chick. Dead, though.”

Sam blinked, my blunt nature - still - catching him off-guard. “When? How?”

“Don’t remember, and don’t know. Came up in a briefing one day. Took her number out of my phone. That’s all, folks.”

“I mean, I get it if you two weren’t close—”

I gave him a  _look_ and began to raise from my elbows to sit up, Sam taking the hint and rolling to the side. “We don’t _all_ get to fight the fight beside our brother. If anyone does get too close? Pack it in, somebody’s getting transferred. You two make it work - for most, it’s a handicap in the field.”

“That why you work alone?”

“Depends. I’ll do the odd recruit training, if it’s a good fit. But no, generally I don’t play well with others. And I get better results because of it. That’s all the boss wants - missions accomplished.”

And that was when Sam got silent for several long moments, then ponied up that he’d been more in tune with the heated conversation Dean and I had than I’d realized.  

“Speaking of recruits - earlier, it sounded like you said something about…. you implied that when Dean’s soul….”

“When he was a demon.”

Sam nodded, the words apparently still somehow a choking hazard.

“That your company, your division - whatever - that he would’ve been…. what, an agent? Like you?”

“This bothers you?  We have to deal with all kinds, we’re not above alliances when they’re beneficial to the bigger picture - you two have partnered up with plenty of questionable characters. I can start name-dropping, and you know as well as I do, that list doesn’t start and end with hell’s most eligible monarch.”  

Now he shook his head, took another beat or two before answering. “I get it. May not always agree with it, but I get that sometimes it’s a necessary evil. That wasn’t what bothered me. I know it’s… it’s crazy, I just…. For a second there, when I was watching the two of you talking, it was like he’d… that it was…”

“Guest starring Dean 2.0, new and improved demony filling?”

Another nod, and another sigh from me, because damn those eyes that were begging me to tell him he was wrong.

“Yeah, I, uh… kinda picked at that scab. Your brother works my nerves, but I shouldn’t have gone down that road.”

“What did you say?”

“The truth. That I think his hunting is sometimes… impeded… by his emotions. The whole handicaps-in-the-field thing. I tell ya, Sam -  _that_ version of Dean? He and I would’ve gotten along just peachy. Maybe even better than you and I.”

Sam studied my face for a second, then asked, “Why?”

“'Cause what you see is what you get - no nonsense.”

Sam broke eye contact, then he sat up fully, got off of the bed, started to look for the clothing he’d shed before diving in.  I didn’t fight it, stayed quiet, just watching, wondering if I should’ve laid off the blatant honesty and stuck with the subterfuge.  He finally spoke at the post-socks, pre-shoes part of his dressing. “Except it  _wasn’t_ \- he would lie, he would twist—-”

“He  _did?_ ” I interrupted, and with a  _get real_  look plastered on my face. “In my experience, demons are amongst the most honest folk on this here mortal coil - they own what they are, what they do, and sure as shit aren’t making sure their halos are on straight before they fuck with your brain.”

I was back to watching, Sam’s often-fucked-with-brain quickly combing through the interactions he’d had with his soul-tweaked brother, he had no poker face, not when it came to this topic. I also surmised there was more truth than not in what he must’ve been told, though the rest of us could only imagine. All I knew was, Dean could cut a nice wound with his words, and with more proficiency, more pinpoint accuracy than he’d ever had with that stupid bone blade, so for whatever good it was worth, the persons on the receiving end of his demon tongue had my sympathy.

Again Sam shook his head as he responded, but this time the words came out with less confidence. “When Dean…. what Dean  _was_ , I’m not stupid, of  _course_ you know about it. And your company, agency, whatever – to want someone like what he was, it’s insane.”

“From ‘necessary evil’ to the real thing, that what you’re saying? Dean being a demon meant he was evil?”

Sam gave me a  _look_ , and I handed it right back - that is, til he picked up his shoes and jacket, started towards the door in socked feet. I found it unacceptable - the leaving, not the socks - and so I spoke.

“ _No_ , okay?” 

A stop, a half-turn.

“No, you’re  _not_ stupid - Dean’s not, either. I don’t think it, never read or heard anything out of anyone who’d remotely even  _suggest_ it. And not about hunters, in general.”

He seemed surprised, turned to face me completely; I looked him dead in the eye.

“There’s more out there than just us and hunters, and leftover Moles, and freakshow families like the Stynes - there’s all kinds of power-hungry third party pockets. You  _gotta_ know that, in your gut if nowhere else. And there’s players on the field who don’t take the this-is-how-we’ve-always-rolled, us-against-them plays into consideration, Sam, I will give you that. My group is one of them, and you certainly have no reason to take my word for it—-”

“I wouldn’t say that I don’t—”

“—but i’m telling you, my boss? The boss-boss, the big cheese, where the buck stops? He’s old-fashioned and traditional in a zillion ways. He also  _loves_ knowledge, dude actually gets pumped if something challenges him, proves him wrong. So fun gadgets and experimental methodology kinda come along with that, but most aren’t - aren’t open to newness, to looking at things differently. They range anywhere from old-school strong-arm methodology, making deals like mobsters, to being downright, caveman feral.“

"So your boss is more enlightened than everyone else, I get it. What’s your point?” His voice was still slightly pinched, his jacket still in his hand, yet he’d been inching back over to the bed as I spoke.

“My point  _is_ , not everything the lore spouts off is the end-all-be-all authority. Not everything is some mystical zero-sum game. Dean batting for the other team didn’t inherently mean—-”

“That there wasn’t some good left in him?” Sam said, bitterness in check.

“Oh he was  _real_ extra, nobody’s arguing. Lookit, bottom line: just because a human’s not-so-human anymore, doesn’t mean it’s the end of their usefulness when it comes to keeping the world spinning, keeping whatever the Amara du jour may be at bay. And since I’ve been working with the poster children for that fact during this latest adventure, kinda chaps my ass I’m having to remind you of it. You two managed not to get lost.”

“What if we’re the exception?”

I bit my tongue, literally; he raised his eyebrows, trying to tempt me into responding. Instead I parted my legs, started pulling on one of the garters, popping it against my thigh. Gave him a nice, slow, head-to-toe once-over while I was at it. “You  _can_ be exceptional, when your head’s in the game.”

“That your  _latest_  assignment? Getting my head out of the game?”

“Who’s playing games?”

Like I said, I’m patient, but fortunately Sam didn’t keep me waiting just then, and once he was back where he’d started, well, it’s not what I’d have classified as playing. And also like I said, never been a vocalizer, too porny. But this wasn’t a conscious decision; this time was different. For the first time in longer than I’d ever admit, I’d been rendered breathless.

.

* * *

.

“What’d I miss?” I asked, coming through the door and walking right up to them.

Cleared throats cleared away most of the blushes I’d noted, and they placated me with  _Nothing!_ s and  _Not much more to see around here!_ s and the like. So I decided to go along, agree to leave. At least, that’s what they were meant to believe.

“Yeah, I’m gonna be pissed if my favorite shoes get ruined, and they’re screaming at me to…. to….”

I was glancing around, preparing to launch into my shtick of the home office wanting me personally to give the place a quick run-through so we could get back to the mara, when an honest-to-god frown hit my face and I pushed them apart, walking forward and gradually hunching over to get a better look at what I thought I might’ve been seeing.

“To?” Dean prompted.

“….get outta here,” I mumbled, inching forward.  I dropped into as much of a crouch as my skirt would allow, rubbed at an out-of-place streak on the floor. And then I scratched at it, brought it to my nose for a sniff. And then I  licked it.

“Um—-” Sam began, but I heard Dean whap him, I assume thinking this was a point in the vampire column, and I rolled my eyes before standing and turning back to them, extending my finger.

“It’s not blood - see? It’s too red.”

“What’re you—” Sam tried, only to be cut off again.

“I don’t care  _what_ it is, you’re licking the floor!” Dean exclaimed.

“Like you haven’t had worse in your mouth,” I shot back. “And you  _should_ care, because I think I know where the waitress is. I mean, the lack of a corpse tells me the two of you had no luck while I was gone, riiiight?”

Silence and a flat  _look_ was my answer, so I turned back around, slowly walking forward, scouting for more scuffs, Sam right behind me.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Some sort of paint, maybe nail polish, but it’s got this real chemical….” I trailed off with a snicker, raised my hand again. “Smell my finger?”

He laughed, and Dean huffed, stomped closer, elbowing his way between us; I threw him a bone. 

“I think she painted the bottom of her shoes - remember? How she liked my shoes?” I briefly raised a heel, reminding him of the red soles.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Yeah. And it’s leading this way.” I pointed towards the little hallway near the far end of the bar, that led to the bathrooms.

“The cops checked in there, no bodies - they’re all out here,” Dean informed me.

I kept walking forward, replying, “And now  _we’re_ gonna check in there.”

The scuff marks stopped right smack in between the doors to the men’s and the ladies’ - or, as they’d so very  _charmingly_ been labelled,  _SIDS_ and  _NANCYS_.  My eyes were going to roll completely backward if I didn’t start to pace myself.  As reported, the men’s room was vacant, just splattered here and there with castoff, and the body-sized streaks indicated that whatever attacked had apparently disabled the victim… or _victims_ … before the drag back out to their dance floor cafeteria.

Didn’t matter - the ladies’ room was our endgame.

There wasn’t any blood, though the scuff marks picked back up - a few not far in front of the door, and a handful of small ones by a sink, the tap of which was still dripping slightly.

“There’s been a struggle,” Sam noted, and I nodded in agreement.  He walked over to the sink, gave the tap a firm twist. Then he looked down into the basin, and frowned as he began to push up his sleeve.

“What?” asked Dean.

Sam’s answer was to pull up a string of silvery beads, a long one, and there at the end was a cross. “Rosary,” he said. “And it’s got blood on it.”

Things were starting to come together in my head, but it was disjointed, not quite fitting - understandable, given the waitress factor.

I gave Dean a little elbow. “Call out to her.”

“What?” he repeated, tone clipped, glare fixed on me.

“Her name, Dean. Call her name.”

“Why?”

I stared at him. I looked to Sam for an assist, but he was busily drying off the rosary for some damn reason. I looked back to Dean. “Fine. Tell  _me_ her name,  _I’ll_ call for her.”

And the glare broke, his expression glazing over, causing me to want to pop out a few of those perfect pearly whites because I suddenly  _knew_ , and he  _knew_ I knew.

“You don’t have the first fucking clue what her name is, do you?” I whisper-hissed.

“We’re in a  _bathroom_ \- we can  _see_ she’s not in here!”

“The trail ends here. She’s gotta be somewhere close by because— oh, just fuck it.”

I started looking in the stalls, hit pay dirt in the last one, the biggest one, and I pointed. Dean and Sam both came up beside me to see. There, on the toilet, both on the seat and the top of the tank - not to mention on the handrail, and in a smattering of bumps and nicks on the back wall - was red paint. Then I pointed up - the low ceiling had removable tiles, and the one directly above the stall was slightly askew.

The three of us looked at each other; several moments of silence passed.

“Well, since none of us know her name,” I said, and super-slow, and super-patronizing, “and since we don’t know where she may’ve crawled off to, why don’t you—-”

“I know, I know,” Dean cut in, already pulling the phone from his pocket and scrolling to her number.

And just like that, the dulcet, tinny tones of Britney Spears wafted into the air, originating somewhere above and to our left, prompting us to raise our heads and look up in unison.

_Hit me baby, one more time!_

THUMP

“She didn’t even turn the ringer off,” Dean said, and not without a touch of awe.

We followed the series of shuffles interspersed with a whimper or two that came next with our eyes, and when puffs of dust came down, and it looked like the tiles were starting to give, Sam leapt into action.

“Hang on! It’s me, it’s Sam! I mean, Agent Win— Agent---  _never mind!_  HANG ON!” he called out, climbing atop the toilet and reaching up just in time to catch a fishenetted calf as it popped through.

We waited several minutes once she was out of her hiding spot, watching as she crumpled into a seated position on the toilet, wiping at her tear-soaked face with toilet paper that disintegrated faster than she could collect it, finally resorting to just leaving it attached to the roll, pulling it along as she went, the now-soggy tail piling up rapidly at her feet.

As the roll arrived at cardboard status, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Are you hurt?” I demanded.

“No-o-o-o-ohhh,” she wailed.

“Can you stop crying, then?”

“No-o-o-OOOOOOHHHH!”

“TRY!” Dean and I shouted at once, and Sam shot us a  _look_  before crouching down, putting a hand on her knee.

“Can you tell us what happened?” he asked sweetly.

“You won’t believe me!”

“Does it have something to do with this? It helped you get away, didn’t it?”

Sam held out the rosary, she nodded, pulled it over her head, and it caused me to take in her outfit as a whole: crimped, teased hair with a ridiculous knotted scarf for a headband; way too many clunky, gaudy bracelets; her usual amount of eye makeup, but with dark, colored-in eyebrows and a penciled-in mole by her lip; boobs practically tearing at a once-white, now blood-covered, see-through lacy top, plus matching fingerless lace gloves; a skirt with a loud pattern the likes I hadn’t seen in years; and the fishnets, which led down to pleather ankle boots that I knew had painted red soles.

“It– it was ay—ay—-eighties night,” she began, through what I hoped would be the last of her sniffles.

And the wannabe Madonna proceeded to regale us with the tale of how she’d been dancing with some hot dish that ended up seeing  _her_  as a hot dish. When he started pawing at her ass and she started trying to get away, one of the bouncers came over, which got him bit, because - spoiler alert - horny fanger. The waitress freaked when an artery shot all over her, so she ran into the bathroom, started washing off.

“You didn’t run out the door?” Sam asked, verbalizing all our confusion, because it doesn’t tend to go  _Fight or Flight or Freeze or Freshen-up_.

“No. I mean…. it got in my bra. It was  _gross_.”

She’d left the water running to fill up the sink, taken off the top to rinse the blood out, and the rosary had slipped off with it.  Apparently, she didn’t hear the chaos erupting outside over her own crying. Didn’t hear the demon come in, either.

“Th-the other guy, he was on me s-so fast, I couldn’t d-do anything! And his _ey-ey-eyes_ _!"_

“The first guy didn’t bite you?” Sam asked, even though he immediately reached up and moved some of her hair to check for himself.

“No! Just squeezed my tush! But—” she leaned forward, lowered her voice to a whisper “—the other guy tried to  _grab_  my  _boobs!_ ”

Dean and I shared an understanding glance and small shrugs.

“And the other one, when I slapped him - 'cause, y'know, he----"

"We know," all three of us said in unison.

"Well _then_ he started yanking me around, and I think, you guys, I think he was gonna knock me _out_ , he was getting ready to, I _know_ it, and I kinda landed in the sink, and I don’t know what happened, but when the water splashed on him he screamed and his face, it started _smoking_ , and he let me go, and I grabbed my shirt, and I hid in the stall, but then there was more screaming and I tried to call Dean, and—”

“Slow down, okay? Take a deep breath,” Sam instructed, and she nodded, doing so.

“Boys, I’m willing to bet you’re better at giving the speech than I am, so who’s gonna do the welcome-to-your-new-reality honors?” I asked.

“Whaddya mean?” the waitress asked, with the innocence of a kindergartner. A top-heavy, still-a-little-drunk kindergartner.

“Well, your handsy dance partner was a bonafide vampire, and the tit-grabber was a demon.”

Her chin quivered and the beginnings of a whine-meets-wail began to faintly emerge from the back of the throat.

“Yeah, you suck at this,” Dean affirmed, then nudged Sam out of the way, crouching down in his place and taking one of the waitress’ hands in his own.

Surprised, Sam stood, backed completely out of the stall to stand by me. 

“Look, sweetheart, you gotta stop crying. For me, okay?”

She looked at him adoringly, albeit still misty-eyed, replying, “Okay, I’ll try.”

“We’re - Sam and I, and her, too - we’re more X-Files than Criminal Minds—-”

“I love that show!”

“—-and we’re not exactly feds, either. We’re hunters - we take care of the stuff that goes bump in the night, the things most people think are just stories.”

No reaction - no fidgets, no gasps, no tears - she just stared at him.

“There was also a werewolf here, so, uh, good job on hiding up there, that was good thinking.”

Still no response. Zero. Zip.

Dean looked over his shoulder at us. “Could you two be  _useful?_  Get her some water or something?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam said, and I frowned, but followed him out of the bathroom and to the bar to find a glass that wasn’t broken or covered in guts. 

“He’s being awfully caring,” I commented.

“Dean was concerned about her, he just doesn’t wanna show it around you,” Sam replied. He found a suitable glass and stepped over the bartender’s body to get to the small sink midway down the bar.

I stayed put, snagged a maraschino cherry from the - thankfully covered - garnish tray. And then I decided to poke the handsome hornet nest. “Hmmm. That what you two were gabbing about when I walked back in earlier? Sure seemed serious.” I chewed on my treat, listened for the hesitant, under-the-breath chuckle and gulp heard 'round the world.

“Heh, yeah, he was, uh… just still not convinced she knows anything, that she’s involved in the mara stuff.”  

Sam made his way back over with the water. I flicked the cherry stem away. It landed in the bartender’s chest wound.  

“But you are?”

“I think there’s lots about the situation we don’t know enough about.”

A lie chased with the truth, my favorite cocktail.

“He really seems to be into her, though,” I commented as we walked. “She his norm, his type? His on-the-road-type, I mean.”

“I guess, yeah. Why?”

“His off-the-roads, the ones with more longevity, as it were, are of a different league. And that concludes my segue, my good Samuel, as now I must inform you: I have officially abandoned my stance that she is the mara.”

“Oh, really - what’s the theory now?”

“Working on it, but I’m still asking myself: What  _is_ it with this chick? She have beer-flavored nipples?”

Sam laughed, and though we’d arrived at the door to the bathroom, he stopped and turned. “Dean’ll be glad to hear it. But, seriously, why’d you change your mind?”

“Simple. Our mara’s chief tell - scumbag assholes. The lack of control in the last kill tells me she’s extra pissed. So when swag drac started thinking with his impaler? She would’ve broken cover and broken his neck. Not a doubt in my mind.”

“Good point.”

And it was - even though I'd always known full well the waitress was as basic a human as it gets, I wasn’t lying about my thoughts on the overkill. Now that I knew from Wildcat I was dealing with the real deal, I was ready to floor it. I was gonna spin the inconvenience of the Winchesters turning up, the rogue mara, and the disaster of the monster mash triad into gold.  

My wooing of Sam was coming to an end, or as Captain Mal might say, at the very least, rapidly coming to a middle. Dean had been too twitchy around me from practically the jump, no do-overs there. They didn't buy the waitress as our cunning creature of the night, and regardless, they sure as shit weren't gonna stand down for taking out the mara if they got even half a chance. But I couldn't bank on it going my way, her attacking again, letting _that_ be their distraction. I had one last opportunity for getting them focused elsewhere - on those three misfit dipshits - and I was goddamn gonna take it.

And I was ready to do _anything_ that meant I could ideally knock out my mission without much more interruption.

Sam went in, but I leaned against the hallway wall. Not a peep was coming from the bathroom, and at least ten minutes passed. I’d just shot a text to Wildcat, asking if there’d been any word yet on the aforementioned goons, thinking on my plan and how I could talk him into helping me out, when the door opened and into the hallway they came, a Winchester on each of the waitresses’ arms. They were leading her down and around the bodies - that ridiculous scarf had been turned into a blindfold.

“So she doesn’t see all the—-” Sam started to explain, but I waved him off, then added a thumbs-up and what I hoped was a sympathetic - or at least, an understanding - touch of a smile.  

I followed along, to the main area, then around the corner, cutting through the small kitchen area, heading to the back exit so we wouldn’t have to explain the newest member of our party to the remaining local lawmen. I waited my turn, watching as Dean broke away to hold the door open, letting Sam guide her out into the crisp night air. Dean didn’t move. So neither did I.

“Well?” he prompted, gesturing with his free hand.

“What a gentleman,” I said, walking out. Up ahead, Sam seemed to be double-timing it to keep up with the waitress’  _get-me-the-hell-outta-here_  pace, despite her legs being about nine feet shorter. I surmised he was trying to keep her out of traffic - she hadn’t removed the blindfold.

“I’ll take that as 'thanks’,” Dean replied, but he kept by my side and, for whatever reason, started a conversation. “She uh, had to pee, then wash her face, then fold that thing into—-”

“If you’re trying to say you’re sorry for taking so long, don’t sweat it.”

“ _No_ , I was _gonna_ tell you that Sam mentioned you’re laying off of her - which is good, so maybe we can get focused on finding the real mara. I  _know_ monsters - she’s not one. Glad you finally get that.”

“I’ll take that as 'thanks’.”

“You can take it, and---” 

He cut himself off, and in my mind, I pictured Sam not only relating I’d dropped that angle, but also telling Dean to acknowledge it, and to not be a dick about it, which was probably a correct assumption, seeing as Dean shifted into the most mundane of small talk.

“Least the weather’s not bad.”

_Oh christ-on-a-cracker._

At my lack of a return meteorological comment, he tried again. "I tell ya, I'm hoping we're done with all this in the next few, get home by Saturday. You got plans for when we stick a fork in this bitch and call it a day?"

“Not a one.”

“Sam considers digging through the lore a relaxing weekend, I’ll probably end up rolled under the car—–”

“Dean, if I cared about what you do on the weekends, I’d stick a shotgun in my mouth and pull the trigger with my toes.”

He huffed, left it at that, and we walked in silence about a block from the club, to the parking lot that held both my car and his, the only residents at that time of night, not to mention the cops had blocked off most of the road during the time we were inside. My phone dinged - Wildcat’s tone - just as we left sidewalk for asphalt. Sam was shutting one of the back doors, met us halfway.

“She’s laying down in the back,” he told us, and I noticed he lacked his jacket, immediately knowing he’d covered her with it, which made my heart flutter, which pissed me off even more than what I’d just read in the text.  

“Why?” Dean asked him, and in such an annoyed tone, my eyes left my phone momentarily to glance at Sam, but he was busy narrowing his eyes at his brother.

“Why  _not?_ ” Sam asked in return, seemingly just as annoyed that Dean was questioning an innocuous gesture on his part. “She’s exhausted.”

“And she can pass the hell out once we drop her off, but there’s still more stuff we need to tell her.”

“She’s overwhelmed, Dean!”

“I’m going back to the motel,” I told them.

“Did you hear something?” Sam asked, pointing briefly at my phone.

“Something, yeah.”

“Anything you’d like to share?” Dean asked.

He'd turned, aligning himself so that it was the two of them against the one of me, and it felt a bit like a firing squad. Minus the guns, but even if, those two were still a pretty picture.

I didn't answer them, merely tilted my chin towards the car, said, "Let me know how it goes."

They didn’t, not that it mattered, since I’d bugged Sam’s phone the first time he’d hauled himself out of our bed and walked to the bathroom naked as the day he was born, leaving it unattended. After I talked with Wildcat, and they still weren't back, my phone and earbuds were the only company I brought to bed. I backtracked a bit to listen to the start of Dean lecturing the waitress, but there was something that caught my attention, before they’d climbed into the Impala.

After I’d driven away, Sam said six little words that were followed by silence, rustling, then what sounded like a clap on the shoulder. Maybe even a quick hug.

_I think you may be right._

I knew what he meant. This acquiescence, it wasn’t as vague a comment as it may’ve sounded to any other eavesdropper. Sam had gotten ahead of schedule in starting to figure me out. Then again, I hadn’t exactly been on top of things the whole time, per my usual. Still, it was all falling into that pattern I knew so well.

The club was a good half-hour away from the waitress’ house, and Dean bombarded the poor gal the entire way. He ramped it up when he got a text from one of the deputies who was still at the emergency room - it was official. All of the club goers were dead. And since the waitress was a plus one of a coworker, she wasn’t on a guest list, so all she had to do was keep her mouth shut.

People will think you’re nuts, he said. More importantly, law enforcement will think you’re nuts, maybe even that you’re involved, he said. Most important of _all_ , the baddies that tried to eat you might realize they forgot to kill everyone and come back for you, he said.

 _"Do you get it? Are you listening?_ " Dean would growl-ask intermittently.

And every time he asked this, she calmly and firmly replied she understood, cross-her-heart, she promised, even offered him a pinky swear when they walked her to her door.

But she hadn’t - listened or understood, that is. She blabbed. Which brings us back to the night we retrieved her from the police station. And to when the mara made sure my mission - and my dealings with the Winchesters - came to a hell of an end. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is fuel! Let me know if you enjoyed. -Nash


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The agent stumbles upon a discovery that seems too good to be true; Dean lands himself in real trouble; the waitress shows a different side; the agent finally reveals the truth behind her mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Don't forget - this series features a sprinkling of movie/TV lines & song lyrics for various challenges (see 1st chapter's notes for more info), and a reminder that this takes place in early S11

**_WEDNESDAY_ **

I slept like the dead that night, thanks to the fact that Sam didn’t sleep in my room. He’d said something about not wanting to wake me up, though he did just that at half past the crack of dawn, when he came in and grabbed up his laptop and his bag, barely even looked at me. Well, that’s not  _exactly_ true - he did at my admittedly snide goodbye.

“Cheer up, Sammy. It’s Wednesday.”

The door was slammed shut without another word.

I was still turning over the news from Wildcat in my mind. The trio of terror had most definitely gone rogue, and their stunt of turning my request for a touch of mayhem into a horror movie meant they were dunzo. The Recovery Team - which in this case, meant recovery of  _pieces_ because this was elimination-level shit - was supposedly en route, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be any time soon. I called Wildcat as I finished getting ready for the day, told him I was pulling rank, and Recovery should let me know once they had the goons cornered, hold off on the wham-boom til I gave the word.

“He won’t like it,” Wildcat advised.

“But you can get around him, can’t you? For now? Isn’t he bopping around some other world, hunting for his X-marks-the-spot?” I replied. “C'mon. You’re the best at covert shenanigans.”

“And  _you_ are a control freak,” Wildcat stated, but I heard him clicking away, putting in the team’s orders, relating I was running point.

I finished applying my lipstick, rubbed my lips together, then made that  _pop_ sound just to piss him off; I grinned when I heard him sigh. “Kitty, I got no choice. Sam’s onto me hard core. Got a feeling I’ll need the distraction if I don’t want this assignment to bloat and belly up.”

“This better work. If  _he_ gets word, I wouldn’t want to be in your Louboutins, my dear.”

Wildcat’s comment was perfectly timed, as I was right at that moment slipping them on. “Just make sure Recovery knows to keep those shitbirds corralled, no sedating darts, let the mania fly - and to keep out of sight of the Winchesters.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m sending them on the prowl, which they’ll do, because I’ll share how my fantastic partner in covert crime has alerted me to the location of the creeps-of-the-week. General vicinity. Give or take.”

“So it’s to be a snipe hunt.”

I picked up my keys, walking to the door as I answered. 

“Yup. I got work to do.”

.

* * *

.

The boys took the bait, too pumped for the action to bother being pissed at me or question my saying I was going to follow a lead Wildcat had given me on the mara’s hidey-hole. I didn’t have one, of course, and it didn’t matter since daylight hour evisceration wasn’t her jam. What I was  _actually_ up to was boring as fuck, but a necessary bore - I was stuck in my car on an old-fashioned stake out, across the street from the waitress’ house, waiting on her to emerge. I’d texted her under the guise of taking her to lunch, but got no answer, and there was no light on in the bedroom I knew to be hers; no doubt she was still asleep.

At least one roommate had returned to the roost, but I didn’t get a glimpse of her until late afternoon, when she opened the front door, crossed her arms, and stared right into my eyes.

And when I looked into  _hers_ , I sat up straight, felt my eyebrow arch on its own. “Fuck me,” I muttered.

As I walked across the street, she came out onto the small landing, closed the door behind her, re-crossed her arms. She was an absolute dish, tips to toes, tall and curvy, looked like she’d just hopped off a vintage Hollywood poster. It was a purposeful, polished presentation, one I appreciated, so much so I honestly didn’t want to update the database with this newly encountered, mighty fine brand of mara.

To say I couldn’t hardly get my head wrapped around this stroke of luck was the understatement of the goddamned century.

“You can call me Raquel,” she said by way of introduction, didn’t ask my name, and I didn’t volunteer it.

“And our girl in there’s working the Mansfield angle,” I replied. “Damn, now I kinda wanna meet the other roomies, who else we got? A Loren, a Monroe — ooh, dare I hope — a  _Lamarr?_ ”

“You amuse me. You know why I look the way I look. Part and parcel of living alongside them. Which I enjoy more than hiding in the woods.”

“Still. Didn’t have to go bombshell to chum the waters. You got good taste.” I gave her a lingering once-over, admiring more than just the perfectly fitted slacks and cashmere shell. “Beyond the Chanel, I mean.”

“Likewise. Those shoes are in excellent condition for how old they are - though I  _could_ say the same for  _you_.”

“I’m real big on regular maintenance. Mind if we get down to business?”

“I’ve no business with you. I don’t deal with your kind. I only want to know why you’re camped outside of my home, yet doing nothing.”

“Yeeeeah, but this may interest you -  _benefit_ you. I’d like to take a couple potential problems off your hands. And I’ll throw in three super-powered square meals, team full of buffed after-dinner mints to sweeten the pot. All-male review.”

“And what am I to do in return?”

I grinned. “Make a big fucking mess of main street tonight.”

“I have plans tonight.”

“That so? If you got another dirtbag lined up, well… you don’t need my help, but I’d be up for a quick peep show. Never seen it go down in real time.”

“I rarely go down.”

My grin widened. “I wanna be like you when I grow up.”

That earned me a wicked - but genuine - cackle, head thrown back and all. “Aren’t you just a peach. I do take pleasure in a witty woman.”

I tilted my head toward the house - and the waitress slumbering inside. “My experience with ol’ Mansfield says you’re in short supply. There’s a not-so-good-head-on-her-shoulders joke somewhere in there, but I’ve been a little off my game.”

“Your game seems quite on point from where I stand.” She paused, returned the once-over. “So.  _Should_ I consider changing my plans for tonight, tell me: what’s  _your_ pleasure? Traditional start? Or full gallop?”

“Hmmm. Mine? Given what you’re working with —” I took a step closer, ran a finger under the long string of pearls that landed right above her cleavage “— may wanna come on the scene like Lady Godiva.”

“That’s how you’d have me come?”

 _Jesus_. “Just considering, huh? I thought you didn’t do business with my kind,” I said, removing my hand, but letting it drift away slowly. That ultra-fine cashmere blend felt - dare I say it - heavenly.

“Are we still discussing business? Or I have I misread?”

I glanced at my watch. “We got a while til sundown.” I looked back into those sharp, glinting eyes. “No business for hours. Not a man to deal with for miles.”

Raquel brought a hand to my face, swiped a thumb across my lower lip then down, smearing the red lipstick to my chin, admiring her handiwork for a few breathless beats - breathless on  _my_ part, that is - before she met my gaze again, and responded.

“Give me a minute. I’ll make sure the baby’s fast asleep.”

.

* * *

.

I couldn’t say if it was when I was getting in some going-down, or if it was when Raquel was strapping up that the sleepy-time cocktail wore off and the waitress slipped out of the house, but the series of borderline belligerent texts from Dean sure pulled me out of a helluva afterglow.

The short version was that she’d gone to the restaurant for no good reason, then when her co-workers - the ones  _not_ on the slab -  started talking about the manager’s murder and the subsequent massacre, the brain cells that managed to rub together opted to regale the soon-to-be-stunned folks with so much detail about said deaths that one of them called the cops. Thankfully, brain cells three and four kicked in, and Dean was her phone call after she’d been officially arrested following enough of a quote-unquote confession to convince the powers-that-be she was definitely involved, whether the ditz routine - or the nutbar routine, depending - was for show or not. I managed to shoot a text to Raquel in the time that it took Dean to get back to the motel and pick us up, telling her that we were running behind schedule, but she didn’t text back, and there wasn’t much time to dwell on it, because, well, Sam.

I knew when Sam made with the flirting and the come-ons that it was an act, didn’t even need to check the tap to know he and Dean had made a plan that morning while they were out chasing the fake lead, all to try and get one over on me, go after the mara on their own after the cakewalk of dispatching the trio - presumptive arrogant dicks - wanting to keep me busy, even if it meant Sam had to do the dirty work while Dean went off alone to finish up the recon.

Which was bad. Very bad.  _Extremely_ bad.

Sam had barely gotten his mouth around a nipple when my brain started screeching out a red alert, and I sat up so quickly, he rolled off the bed, bumping his head on the night stand.

“It was a set!” I shouted.

“The hell?!” he shouted back, rubbing the bump.

“Last night,” I answered, quickly getting dressed. “Dean. Where was he?”

“ _What?_ ” Sam asked with a frown, getting to his feet.

“Cut the bullshit, Sam, this is serious!” I exclaimed, whipping back around. “Stop with the fuck-her-incoherent plan for a second, all right?”

“What?” he repeated, but there wasn’t much of a question in his tone.

“I know that you know I’m not all what I’ve put myself out there to be, and I  _also_ know that  _you_ know that  _I_ know this right here isn’t anything legit, so listen up: you’re right. Dean’s right. I’m a liar. But I’m  _not_  lying now.”

“Sure you aren’t.”

“Dean’s in real danger.”

I don’t know what the expression on my face looked like, but Sam immediately stiffened and gulped - he’d heard me loud and clear. 

“Tell me,” he said, hustling to get his clothes back on.

“You first - when Dean got laid last night, do you know who it was?”

Sam looked at me, puzzled. “The waitress was at the club —”

“NO!” I yelled, threw one of his shoes at him, which he dodged. “ _Focus!_  In the car, dumbass! Who did he fuck  _in the car?_  Did he say a  _name?_  Did you  _see_ her, like was she the bartender at the restaurant, or was the medical examiner a chick, or —-”

“I don’t underst —-”

Since he was officially being of no use to me, I bolted out of there, took a sharp left, started banging on the door of Dean’s room; the waitress finally opened it nigh on the twenty-thousandth pound, standing there cool as could be with that rat’s nest of bleach piled atop her head, the near see-through joke of a blouse replaced by an old black tee of Dean’s.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, sweetly, politely, even though there was a slight grunt underneath her words, seeing as how I’d shoved her ass to the side, plowing ahead to the bathroom where I rightly assumed the confirmation of my gut feeling was located.

“Oh fuck me,” I said for the second - okay, more than that, but in  _this_ sense - time that day.

“I got almost all of my mascara off it,” said the waitress, coming up behind me. “I didn’t realize it was so nice.”

She’d washed it out in the sink, that shirt-turned-snotrag that I’d found under the seat and handed to her earlier, and it was now hanging over the shower rod. It reeked of motel shampoo, and the mascara hadn’t really come out, just gotten smudged around into grey stains that made the cream cardigan look like a jaundiced leopard. I reached up, pulled it down, closed my eyes briefly before I read the tag, even though I  _knew_. I just fucking knew.

_CHANEL_

“It’s, um, not  _yours_ , is it?” she asked.

I threw the cardigan into the tub as I turned to her with a  _look_ for asking such a dumbshit question, one I was now positive she knew the answer to, and not just because it was plain that I wouldn’t touch Dean unless it was a proverbial gun-to-head situation.

She jumped slightly, the combo of the sharp  _splat_ of the clothing and the fierceness in my eyes rightly startling her. I took a small step forward. She took a big step back.

“Y-your… your eyes are… the, um… they look like how when… when sometimes my ex would take —-”

“Yeah, my pupils start to dial it up to eleven when I get scared or pissed, and I ain’t been scared of anything in a long,  _long_ time, so guess where I’m at right now.”

“Mad at me?”

I grabbed her by the neck, put her up against the wall, and she squirmed, clutched onto my wrist. I didn’t choke her, nor did I lift her off the floor, but I had a damn good grip. She needed to get my message.  _Fast._

“Now I don’t give three shits how you play it in front of Sam and Dean, or the rest of the human race for that matter, I really don’t, but from here on you’re dropping this dimbulb bunny shtick with me, because I get you’re legitimately shit-for-brains and too stupid to breathe on most subjects, but not when it comes to people. You’re pretty damn good at reading people,  _aren’t_ you?”

Though she kept hold of my wrist, the halt in the squirming and the chagrined expression on her face was my answer.

“You navigate jobs like stripping and waitressing as pro as they come, and you handled those cops like a boss, and you summed up Dean in a hot second, knew  _exactly_ what fantasies to wrap him up in. How am  _I_  doing? Reading  _you?_ ”

A barely-there shrug.

“Thought so. And you’re crafty, I read all about how you got yourself out of the marriage to that asshole biker who liked to knock you around. Duke the Douche, your sister liked to call him, wasn’t that it?”

Widened eyes.

“Oh I did my homework on you, you think I  _wouldn’t?_  So we’re  _done_ with this sweet little ray of sunshine bullshit. I hate those small-dicked fuckers who hit women —” I slid my grip up, pressed into her face hard with my fingertips “— but I got a  _big_ dick, and I will break your jaw if the next words out of your mouth aren’t in your  _real_ voice, and show some  _real_ brains, and have some  _real_ information, ‘cause you don’t start talking straight, you’re not gonna talk at  _all_ , you got me, Malibu Barbie?”

She nodded best she was able, and I let her loose. As she sat on the bed, head dropped, posture slumped, she cleared her throat. And then she started picking at chipped polish on her thumb.

I huffed and crossed my arms. “We’re on the clock here!”

Sam chose that moment to enter the room, opening his mouth to no doubt start yelling again, but the waitress beat him to it. Except it wasn’t a yell that came out. What came out was a voice that was still light but less breathy, and a good quarter step down on the scales than what we’d heard so far.

"What do you wanna know?”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up, looking from her, to me, then back again.

“When did Raquel get back in town?” I asked, getting right to it.

“I’m not sure when, exactly. I’d talked to her on the phone while I was at work the other night.”

“We’re gonna need to  _get_ some exactly. Was it when your manager was playing grab-ass?”

“Mmm-hmm. And I told her I was getting scared, being all alone. That the FBI was in town investigating those murders.”

“And you told her about the murders? That they were your roommates’ boyfriends?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And she made a beeline back, so you wouldn’t be by yourself.”

Another set of nods. “But she said she didn’t want me to miss out on a good time, that I needed to get out of the house for some fun, get my mind off it, so she’d go with me to the club opening, hang around til I felt comfortable.” The waitress paused and gasped. “She’s okay, right? Did anything happen to Raquel? She was home when I left today…” A puzzled look briefly crossed her face. “I think she had company over, because I heard —-”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s great, she’s fine,” I interrupted. I turned slightly to Sam, including him on the next level of my sleuthing. “I have the feeling that together, the two of you will fill in some big gaps. I want you —” I pointed at the waitress “— to tell everything  _Raquel_ said about last night, and you —” my finger went in Sam’s direction “— to tell everything  _Dean_ said.”

They both looked at me blankly.

“On your marks! Get set!” I prompted, and in my most threatening tone.

Sam went first. “Ah, well —” He paused, glanced at the waitress. “Listen, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or anything, but Dean… he sometimes just —”

The waitress cut him off. “It’s okay, Sam, I know he slept with somebody else. It’s not like we’re dating. Go ahead. Tell her whatever he said.”

And what Dean said was this: it seemed while Sam and I had been up to some legitimate dirty work the day prior, in the time between the morgue and the trio’s meltdown, Dean had decided to park himself at a bar and sulk over how the waitress was planning on having a ball without him. So after striking out with the hot co-ed bartender - god, just  _so_ unbelievably predictable - who’d reportedly called him "geezer”, he took his bitter ass over to the club, despite the soiree being invitation-only. And he spotted someone more his age leaning against a light post to the side of the building, puffing on a pale pink Fantasia, someone who put that baby bartender to shame, someone who was an absolute dish, tips to toes, tall and curvy, looking like she’d just hopped off a vintage Hollywood poster.

And ol’ Raquel knew him on sight, courtesy of the suck-face selfies the waitress had showed off of the two of them, bragging about what a tough guy he was, how charming, how he had all the right moves. Given the waitress’ foul taste in men, and the way she was a damn dirtbag magnet in general, Raquel likely presumed Dean was one more in an ever-growing line. The waitress reported that Raquel hated the professor for stringing along roomie Monroe, and she loathed the long-time boyfriend of roomie Loren for stringing  _her_ along since junior high.

“Oh shit,” I muttered, bringing a hand to my forehead. I’d inadvertently had two of the mara’s prime targets taken out. At least she didn’t know; if she  _had_ , she’d have likely tried to rail me in the not-so-fun way.

“Oh shit, what?” the waitress asked, and it broke me out of my thoughts.

“What came next? Did Raquel tell you she was leaving?” I asked as my reply.

“Mmm-hmm, because she’d met a guy. She said she’d stay if I was still nervous. But I told her it was okay, because my friends were…” the waitress began, but trailed off.

“They’re dead, we know, gotta keep moving honeythighs,” I said with a few snaps of my fingers, which caused Sam to glare at me as he sat on the bed next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. I sighed, opted to move her along without going full-tilt bitch. For now. “When did you know it was Dean - was it the sweater?”

Sam cut in, speaking to the waitress. “Time out - your  _roommate_  is the person who — I don’t —” He looked to me. “ _She’s_  the reason you think Dean’s in trouble? I mean, you  _know_ this woman?”

“So do you.”

The waitress’ eyes grew wide as she stared at Sam. “You slept with Raquel, too?” Then, softly - “Wow.” Softer - “ _Ew_.”

Sam frowned at her, then brought his eyes to mine with a _look_ that said _Spill it_.

“You  _do_. Well. You know her  _work_ ,” I said, hoping my return  _look_  conveyed my meaning, and boy howdy, did it.

Sam glanced down at himself, or rather, at his now-rumpled Fed gear. “Let me change,” he told us, standing and rushing over to his bag.

“We’ll be in the car,” I replied, then gestured at our clearly clueless third wheel to gather up her stuff - and once we were settled, she started gathering some clues.

Leaning forward, resting folded arms on the back of the front seat, brow knit, she asked, “How did  _you_ know it was Raquel? I don’t get how it has to do with Dean being in trouble. He’s not in trouble with  _me_. So you and Sam don’t have to be upset on my account.”

I fought the urge to pop her in her perpetually pouty lips, but instead just shifted to look at her. “I met the ol’ girl earlier, noticed she was wearing the shell to that sweater set. Not many people dress like that around here. And it was crammed under the front seat, and he’d gotten his panties in a twist when Sam had put you in back last night. I put p-and-v together, like a good investigator does.”

“But you investigate…”

The question trailed off and no babbles followed, so I took in the sight of myriad light bulbs firing up behind her eyes. “Go ahead.” I gave a quick point to the motel. “Apparently hair care’s taking priority over certain death, we got a minute or two.”

“Is Raquel who you guys have been looking for? You think she did… that she’s been murdering people when she was out of town? Because she wasn’t? Wasn’t out of town? She was  _in_ town? And she was —”

“Yes. I’m saying Raquel came back in town and killed your manager.”

“But she didn’t kill the boyfriends or the people at —”

“No.”

“No?”

 _Shit_. “Yes. They’re, ah…. they fit her M.O. No to the club.”

“’Cause she has an alibi,” the waitress said, glancing to her left, at the scene of Dean’s crime. Looking back up, she asked, “So Raquel’s, like, a for real serial killer?” A beat or two, a few of the bulbs ratcheting up the wattage.“Oooh, orrrrrr….”

“Yeah.  _Or_.”

What felt like millennia of silence passed before the waitress spoke up again. “Can I ask you something? About something you said earlier?”

At that moment, Sam came out of the room, hair perfect, weapons bag thrown over a shoulder. I started the engine as I responded. “What?”

“You have a dick?”

I rolled my eyes. “Metaphor. Do I need to explain what a metaphor is?”

A sheepish look immediately hit her face. “Maybe?”

“Later.”

.

* * *

.

_**WEDNESDAY, 5:38 p.m.** _

“You think she’s going to kill Dean how she killed our other roommates’ boyfriends, don’t you?”

Sam and I looked up from our weapons assembly to stare at the waitress, surprised.

We’d broken into the diner on the modest main street, the one that had been our go-to lunch and late-night-dinner stop. They’d have normally been open and hopping, but the mayor had initiated a curfew; triple homicide plus mass murder’ll light a fire under even the sleepiest of towns. It was a little extreme - everyone should be closed for business at 5:00, everyone should be locked in their houses at 8:00 - but it worked perfectly for me. I had no doubt my boss’ attachés were in town, likely put their finger on the scale so that Recovery would have full run of the area.

“Do you think that’s why she… why she did it?” the waitress added. “To see if he was a cheater? I told her we weren’t serious.”

“She’s not your friend,” Sam said, but gently.

“You think that’s what it was, though, right?”

“Maybe she got the impression you like Dean more than you let on,” Sam suggested, resulting in an instant down-turned look from the waitress as response, yet just as suddenly, she raised her head again, back to her bright, bubbly - and in this case, clearly faked - persona.

“Hey, I bet you guys are hungry. Or, you will be after you’re done… um, working. I’m gonna get going on some food, okay? Okay!”

She’d barely finished her sentence before turning and heading in the direction of the kitchen. I opened my mouth to call out and tell her not to bother, to just sit still for once. Sam put a hand on my arm.

“Let her feel useful,” he advised.

I jerked my arm away, went back to looking over the arsenal we had laid out across the tables of three booths. Between the two of us, it was decently impressive. Impressive for most anything other than a mara of Raquel’s caliber, anyway, that I made sure of - last thing I wanted was her incapacitated. Long as they worked her down to the level I could get her non-corporeal and pop her into that pandora gizmo (be still my heart, in-house coven and some FedEx-worthy transportation spell work), then I was gold.

“I don’t know that our team will get here in time to nail the bitch, but this’ll at least keep her busy, help you get Dean out of whatever bondage she’s got him into,” I commented. Lied. Whatever.

“So they  _are_ coming?” he asked.

“Oh yeah. Locked and loaded.”

“Why  _do_ you think she’ll go after Dean? Won’t she have bigger issues to worry about, with them breathing down her neck?”

“What loyalty she thought Dean should have to Barbarella was beyond me, but suffice to say she took it for a test run, and he failed, and given that she couldn’t get her rocks off with the two long-time sources of her ire, it makes sense that the manager’s comeuppance was gore-a-palooza. Still. I met the broad, she’s intense. No way that one asshole satisfied the craving. Especially since he wasn’t actually  _involved_ with anyone at their Playboy mansion.”

Sam nodded, began sticking various weapons on him, but when he started to put his jacket on, he noted me pulling out my case of toothpicks and froze. “Um, _that’s_ your prep work? You’re not going to change clothes? Maybe bother with getting _yourself_ locked and loaded?”

“Nope,” I replied, sticking the pick in my mouth and returning the case to my pocket. “I’m staying here with the waitress. Hold down the fort. Make sure she doesn’t add to the mess your brother’s gotten us in.”

He pulled his jacket on the rest of the way, straightened it with a sharp tug, and huffed as he ran a hand through his hair. Then he looked me dead in the eye, saying, “I could actually use your help, you know.”

I shrugged. “She needs it more.”

“Because you care so much about her,” he shot back, the words coated in sarcasm.

“Has nothing to do with caring, it’s just logical. You and Dean are a team, can practically read each others’ minds. Like I told you before: it’s hunting 101. Limit liabilities in the field.”

“Thanks for the tutorial, it’s my first day.”

“I’d be a distraction. One of us could bite the dust.”

“What, because I care so much about you?”

I snickered. “Oh honey, no. Because  _I_  care so much about me. It wouldn’t matter if the sensible thing - you know, greater good and all that - meant you needed to handle some goon when another had Dean against the wall, you’d turn your back on what mattered just to rush to his side.”

“Turn my back on… Right. Yeah. Since Dean doesn’t matter.”

“Are you leaving at any point in the next century? To scoop up whatever’s left of Mr. What Matters?”

“You’re a bitch,” he muttered as he stormed by me, knocking into my shoulder on purpose.

“You’re a large-diameter dickhole,” I muttered back; then, louder, as he walked out the door, I got in one final dig. “Have a stellar Wednesday! Fingers crossed it doesn’t turn out Tuesday!”

He shot me a bird without turning around.

I locked the door behind him, put the half-drawn blinds down all the way, and turned off all the lights except for the ones directly over the counter seating area, to make it look good for the waitress. She came out of the kitchen to find me taking off my suit jacket and hanging it on the hand-carved coat rack by the door. So, so quaint this joint - I hoped it’d catch on fire.

“We’re closed!” she said, but when she saw it was me, a tiny frown hit her face. “Did I not hear the bell ding?”

“You did. Sam’s off and running. It’s just us girls,” I replied, walking over and plopping down on a stool. “So what’s cooking?”

“Nothing yet, I’m just getting some burgers and a pie ready to go for when they come back.”

“They may not come back.”

“You think they’ll leave without saying bye?”

I gave her a  _look_. “What did I say about the playing dumb?”

She blinked a few times, then softly said, “Oh.” After a pause, she added, “I guess it’s a habit.”

I took her in for a moment - minus the mascara still holding on from the night prior (fuck if I knew how, I’d have to ask her the brand), her face was clean of makeup, revealing a barely-there touch of freckles. Her hair was in a smooth ponytail, the clip-in extensions coming out when she took it down from the messy bun, and she looked fantastic. And I told her so.

She let out a near soap opera-level gasp. “Really? Seriously?”

“Lookit, if all that other shit makes you happy, I mean, you do you. But from where I sit, it doesn’t seem to, and it seems like a real pain in the ass to deal with every day.”

She snickered and nodded. “It’s not cheap, either. But that’s what Dolly says. Takes a lot of money to look so cheap.”

I grinned. “See, there? Smart cookie. You don’t have to play dumb to be attractive. Trust me, the kind of men that attracts? The kind who don’t even bother to remember your name? Not worth your time, anyway. I think you know that.”

“Men like Dean?”

“Like Dean. He’s a mess of trouble sewn into a sack of squirrel.”

“You don’t like him very much… I mean, the way you talk to him… talk  _about_ him…”

“I’m pushing him because he tends to get pulled off course by women, whether it’s chicks like you or his landfill of mommy issues, and I’ll let you in on a secret: he’s getting closer and closer to a real grade-A cunt back on the home front. He needs to get done with her so that he - and Sam - can really start getting down to business. Like I’m trying to get down to business. With you.”

“I don’t understand. I’m not playing dumb, I promise.”

“I didn’t come here for some creature, the mara wasn’t my mission - neither were they, them being here was a surprise. A kinda nice one. See, my assignment was to get to  _you_.”

She eyed me warily. “What do you want with me? T-to… are y-you… gonna kill me?”

I laughed. “No, no, pumpkin - I try not to get my hands dirty nowadays. But I’ll tell you another secret: I  _was_ behind the first two dirtbags taking dirt naps.”

Her eyes got wide. “Are  _you_ really the creature? Not Raquel?”

“Oh she’s the real deal. We knew about your roomies and their troubled love lives from profiling you, and her cover was way good. Don’t get me started on our surveillance team.”

“O-okay, I won’t.”

“That asshat manager of yours was an unplanned bonus, so was Raquel, but earmarking those other creeps as the ones to be taken out instead of some rando townsfolk was just me being… nice.”

“You don’t seem very nice.”

I tapped her forehead with my finger. “See. Like I said. Smart. Ditch the dumb act for good. This looks prettier on you.”

“But I don’t get it - why’d you do that? Have them killed?”

“I wanted to scare you.”

The waitress blanched. “It… it worked. But —”

I reached out, took her hand. “I need you to go back home.”

She stared at me, opened and closed her mouth a few times, then inhaled and exhaled a shaky breath which didn’t do a thing to bring any color back to her cheeks.

“You need to patch up whatever went down between you and your sister. You know. The one who works at that low-rent wing joint called Cooter’s, which should be getting sued any time now.”

That got a response. “We haven’t… it’s been years.”

“Your sis is roomies with a gal that my company’s very interested in - but she’s about to screw herself over with all the partying she’s starting to do with said sister. She’s gotta be as pure as a newborn babe… well, maybe not  _that_ clean, but at least on paper, she needs to be close if she’s going to get her foot in the door with a politician who’s going to be a big damn deal. And you’re going to teach her how to be a class act.”

“I don’t know anything about —-”

“You will. Because  _I’m_  going to teach  _you_.”

The waitress pulled her hand away, took several slow steps back, shaking her head as she went.

I stood, began to walk around the counter. “Don’t you think you’ve spent enough time on the run? Doesn’t matter what name Dean calls you, 'cause it’s not your real one.”

Now her face flushed. “Well… I bet your name’s not real either!”

“I bet you’re right.” I came to a stop right in front of her. “This gal is real, real important. And we don’t want your sister to play the part of mentor, we checked her out, and - no offense? - her idiot act is legit. There’s that, and the weed. She’s a space cadet, but you? You’re a diamond in the rough. Not to mention? You’ll be rewarded. Oh baby girl, will you ever.”

Another round of silence, some looking around at anything and everything that wasn’t me, and when she met my gaze again, I knew I had her when she asked, “So who is she?”

“Your new best friend is one Kelly Kline.”

The lights suddenly began flickering. Car alarms went off. I felt a small vibration up to my ankles as the ground briefly shook. Shouting floated our way from somewhere down the street. The Impala’s engine came and went. Then, in the not-so-far distance came the sound of galloping, and it got closer, and closer, and  _fast_ , the sharp clomps on the pavement indicating our favorite mare was not wasting any time.

“What is all that?” the waitress whispered.

I smiled, shot her a wink as I answered. 

“It’s showtime.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is fuel! Let me know if you enjoyed - Nash.


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